DELHI UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
DELHI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
3 V
CI. No. O WW ^b ^
Ac. No. ^JCMW ? n*e.
This book should be returned on or before the date last stamped
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THE LETTERS OF EZRA POUND
1907-1941
by the same author
•
SEVENTY CANTOS
MAKE IT NEW
SELECTED POEMS
GUIDE TO KULCHUR
ABC OF READING
THE LETTERS OF
EZRA POUND
I 907- I 94 I
edited by
D. D. PAIGE
E*IV€ ... €1 Tl TOt Ik plpkutV
Jj\0(v c/tcuv o^cAo?, Entioov . . . ,
FABER AND FABER
24 Russell Square
London
First published in mcmli
'by Faber and Faber Limited
24 Russell Square, London, W.C.i
Printed in Great Britain by
Western Printing Services Limited, Bristol
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
page
Foreword
l 9
Chronology
3 1
PART ONE:
LONDON
1907
1. To Felix E. Schelling
16 January
35
1908
2. To William Carlos Williams
21 October
3 6
1909
3. To William Carlos Williams
3 February
41
4. To William Carlos Williams
21 May
41
1912
5. To Harriet Monroe
(18) August
43
6. To Harriet Monroe
(24) September
44
7. To Harriet Monroe
October
45
8. To Harriet Monroe
13 October
45
9. To Harriet Monroe
22 October
46
10. To Harriet Monroe
December
47
1913
11. To Homer L. Pound
January
49
12. To Alice Corbin Henderson
March
49
13. To Harriet Monroe
March
50
14. To Harriet Monroe
March
5i
15. To Harriet Monroe
March
52
16. To Harriet Monroe
30 March
53
17. To Harriet Monroe
22 April
55
18. To Isabel W. Pound
May
5<*
19. To Harriet Monroe
May
56
20. To Homer L. Pound
3 June
57
21. To Harriet Monroe
13 August
58
22. To Harriet Monroe
13 August
59
23. To Harriet Monroe
23 September
59
24. To Harriet Monroe
(?September>
60
Contents
25. To Alice Corbin Henderson
26. To Amy Lowell
27. To Harriet Monroe
28. To Isabel W. Pound
29. To Amy Lowell
30. To Harriet Monroe
31. To William Carlos Williams
32. To Isabel W. Pound
1914
33. To Amy Lowell
34. To Isabel W. Pound
35. To Harriet Monroe
36. To Harriet Monroe
37. To Amy Lowell
38. To Amy Lowell
39. To Amy Lowell
40. To Amy Lowell
41. To Amy Lowell
42. To Harriet Monroe
43. To Harriet Monroe
44. To Amy Lowell
45. To Harriet Monroe
46. To Amy Lowell
47. To Amy Lowell
48. To Amy Lowell
49. To Douglas Goldring
50. To Harriet Monroe
51. To Amy Lowell
52. To H. L. Mencken
53. To Harriet Monroe
54. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
55. To Harriet Monroe
56. To Amy Lowell
57. To Harriet Monroe
58. To Harriet Monroe
October
(PNovember)
7 November
November
26 November
8 December
19 December
24 December
8 January
January
20 January
31 January
2 February
23 February
11 March
18 March
23 March
28 March
April
30 April
23 May
<?i3> J^y
1 August
12 August
18 September
30 September
2 October
3 October
October
12 October
12 October
19 October
9 November
9 November
60
61
61
62
64
64
65
66
67
68
68
69
70
70
7i
72
72.
73
75
76
76
77
77
78
79
80
80
81
81
81
84
84
85
85
1915
59. To Harriet Monroe
60. To Harriet Monroe
(Si f To Harriet Monroe
January
January
31 January
90
92
Contents
62. To H. L. Mencken
63. To John Quinn
64. To Harriet Monroe
65. To H. L. Mencken
66. To Harriet Monroe
67. To H. L. Mencken
68. To Harriet Monroe
69. To H. L. Mencken
70. To Harriet Monroe
71. To Felix E. Schelling
72. To Harriet Monroe
73. To the Editor of the Boston Transcript
74. To Harriet Monroe
75. To Harriet Monroe
76. To Harriet Monroe
77. To Douglas Goldring
78. To Harriet Monroe
1916
79. To Harriet Monroe
80. To Harriet Monroe
81. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
82. To Harriet Monroe
83. To Harriet Monroe
84. To Kate Buss
85. To John Quinn
86. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
87. To Wyndham Lewis
88. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
89. To Iris Barry
90. To Harriet Monroe
91. To Iris Barry
92. To Iris Barry
93. To Iris Barry
94. To Harriet Monroe
95. To Iris Barry
96. To Wyndham Lewis
97. To Wyndham Lewis
98. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
99. To Iris Barry
100. To Wyndham Lewis
18 February
8 March
(PMarch)
17 March
10 April
18 April
(?25> April
2 May
17 May
June
(August)
(August)
25 September
2 October
12 October
(?22) November
1 December
21 January
January
(February)
(February )
5 March
9 March
10 March
17 March
March
30 March
17 April
21 April
24 April
2 May
(May)
5 June
June
24 June
28 June
12 July
13 July
July
93
94
98
99
101
101
103
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
no
no
112
114
"5
115
116
117
119
121
122
i*3
124
124
127
128
129
130
130
131
U 2
134
135
135
*35
Contents
01. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
[02.
To Iris
5 Barry
03.
To Iris
> Barry
04.
To Iris
j Barry
05.
To Iris
; Barry
06.
To Iris
» Barry
07.
To Iris
> Barry
08.
To Iris
» Barry
09.
To Iris
> Barry
IO.
To Iris
> Barry
II.
To H. L. Mencken
12. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
13. To Felix E. Schelling
917
14. To Kate Buss
15. To John Quinn
16. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
17. To John Quinn
18. To Iris Barry
19. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
20. To Margaret C. Anderson
21. To Alice Corbin Henderson
22. To John Quinn
23. To Harriet Monroe
24. To Margaret C. Anderson
25. To Edgar Jepson
26. To Margaret C. Anderson
27. To Margaret C. Anderson
28. To H. L. Mencken
29. To John Quinn
30. To Harriet Monroe
31. To Wyndham Lewis
32. To Harriet Monroe
33. To Margaret C. Anderson
34. To Amy Lowell
35. To Margaret C. Anderson
36. To Edgar Jepson
37. To William Carlos Williams
38. To H. L. Mencken
39. To Harriet Monroe
19 July
1 3 <S
<?*>> July
137
27 July
'39
August
142
24 August
144
(August)
M5
29 August
146
(September)
M7
11 September
148
22 September
149
27 September
150
14 November
151
17 November
151
4 January
154
10 January
154
22 January
155
24 January
156
25 January
'59
30 January
160
(? January)
160
March
162
18 April
163
24 April
165
(ca. May)
165
29 May
I67
(?June)
168
(? August)
I69
12 August
I69
21 August
I70
21 August
172
25 August
*73
26 August
175
(?30 August)
177
30 August
179
(September)
179
7 September
180
10 November
180
28 November
182
29 November
183
10
Contents
•
140. To Margaret C. Anderson
(?December)
184
1918
141. To Harriet Monroe
1 January
185
142. To Margaret C. Anderson
(? January)
186
143. To Wyndham Lewis
13 January
187
144. To Margaret C. Anderson
(? January)
188
145. To H. L. Mencken
25 January
189
146. To John Quinn
29 January
189
147. To Margaret C. Anderson
<?February)
190
148. To H. L. Mencken
12 March
191
149. To John Quinn
3 April
192
150. To Margaret C. Anderson
(? April)
193
151. To Edgar Jepson
(?May)
194
152. To Edgar Jepson
23 May
196
153. To John Quinn
4 June
196
154. To John Quinn
15 November
199
155. To Marianne Moore
16 December
202
156. To Harriet Shaw Weaver
17 December
205
1919
157. To William Carlos Williams
28 January
207
158. To H. L. Mencken
<? January)
208
159. To Marianne Moore
1 February
208
160. To A. R. Orage
(? April)
211
161. To John Quinn
25 October
213
1920
162. To T. E. Lawrence
20 April
215
163. To John Quinn
19 June
216
164. To James Joyce
<?June)
217
165. To Hugh Walpole
30 June
218
166. To James Joyce
(?July>
218
167. To T. E. Lawrence
?August
218
168. To James Joyce
2 August
219
169. To James Joyce
1 September
220
170. To William Carlos Williams
11 September
220
171. To William Carlos Williams
11 September
224
17*- To William Carlos Williams
12 September
"5
I73« To Agnes Bedford
October
226
II
Contents
PART TWO:
PARIS
1 92 1
174. To William Carlos Williams
2 February
229
175. To Marianne Moore
24 March
229
176. To Agnes Bedford
April
230
177. To Wyndham Lewis
27 April
230
178. To Agnes Bedford
PApril
231
179. To Marianne Moore
PApril
231
180. To Agnes Bedford
May
233
181. To T. S. Eliot
24 December
233
182. From T. S. Eliot
<? January)
236
183. To T. S. Eliot
PJanuary
237
184. To Amy Lowell
10 March
2 37
185. To William Carlos Williams
18 March
238
186. To H. L. Mencken
22 March
240
187. To Kate Buss
?23 March
241
188. To Wyndham Lewis
5 April
242
189. To William Carlos Williams
4 May
243
190. To Felix E. Schelling
8 July
2 45
191. To Harriet Monroe
16 July
249
192. To Amy Lowell
19 July
251
193. To William Carlos Williams
(1 August)
251
1923
194. To James Joyce
16 January
^53
195. To William Carlos Williams
9 February
254
196. To Kate Buss
12 May
255
197. To William Bird
(?December)
256
1924
198. To William Bird
10 April
257
199. To William Bird
17 April
258
200. To William Bird
7 May
*59
201. To William Bird
<?November)
260
202. To R. P. Blackmur
30 November
260
203. To Wyndham Lewis
3 December
261
204. To William Bird
26 December
263
12
Contents
PART THREE:
RAPALLO
1925
205. To James Joyce
21 January
267
206. To William Bird
25 January
267
207. To Simon Guggenheim
24 February
268
208. To H. L. Mencken
February
270
209. To R. P. Blackmur
26 March
271
210. To William Bird
18 August
272
211. To William Bird
24 August
2 73
212. To William Bird
11 November
*74
1926
213. To E. E. Cummings
10 November
275
214. To James Joyce
15 November
276
215. To Harriet Monroe
15 November
276
216. To James Joyce
19 November
277
217. To Harriet Monroe
30 November
278
218. To James Joyce
25 December
280
219. To James Joyce
25 December
280
1927
220. To James Joyce
2 January
281
221. To Sisley Huddleston
13 February
281
222. To William Bird
4 March
282
223. To Harriet Monroe
23 March
283
224. To Homer L. Pound
11 April
284
225. To H. L. Mencken
27 April
286
226. To Harriet Monroe
24 September
286
227. To Glenn Hughes
26 September
288
228. To James S. Watson, Jr.
20 October
288
229. To Glenn Hughes
9 November
289
230. To Harriet Monroe
29 December
291
1928
231. To Rene' Taupin
May
292
232. To H. L. Mencken
3 September
2 95
233. To James Vogel
21 November
296
234. To James Joyce
23 December
298
235. To Harriet Monroe
30 December
299
13
Contents
1929
236. To James Vogel
23 January
300
237. To Charles Henri Ford
1 February
301
238. To the Alumni Secretary of the Univ. of
Penna.
20 April
302
239. To John Scheiwiller
26 November
303
240. To William Carlos Williams
2 December
303
241. To Agnes Bedford
December
304
1930
242. To William Carlos Williams
16 January
305
243. To E. E. Cummings
17 February
305
244. To E. E. Cummings
25 March
306
245. To Harriet Monroe
24 October
307
246. To William Carlos Williams
22 November
308
1931
247. To Harriet Monroe
January
309
248. To the Editor of the English Journal
24 January
310
249. To Harriet Monroe
27 March
311
250. To Lincoln Kirstein
<?May)
3i3
251. To Harriet Monroe
6 October
3*5
2 j 2. To H. B. Lathrop
16 December
316
253. To Harriet Monroe
27 December
3i7
1932
254. To John Drummond
18 February
320
255. To John Drummond
18 February
3^1
256. To Langston Hughes
18 June
3*3
257. To John Drummond
3 December
3*3
258. To Harriet Monroe
9 December
3*4
1933
259. To William Bird
15 January
3*5
260. To William Rose Benet
23 January
326
261. To E. E. Cummings
6 April
3*7
262. To Agnes Bedford
April
3*8
263. To John Drummond
4 May
328
264. To Harriet Monroe
14 September
330
265. To T. C. Wilson
24 September
330
266. To Mary Barnard
29 October
331
14
Contents
267, To T. C. Wilson
268. To William P. Shepard
1934
269. To
270. To
271. To
272. To
273. To
274. To
275. To
276. To
277. To
278. To
279. To
280. To
281. To
282. To
283. To
284. To
285. To
1935
286. To
287. To
288. To
289. To
290. To
291. To
292. To
293. To
294. To
295. To
296. To
297. To
298. To
299. To
300. To
301. To
302. To
303. To
T. C. Wilson
Sarah Perkins Cope
Laurence Binyon
Mary Barnard
Robert McAlmon
T. C. Wilson
Mary Barnard
the Princesse Edmond de Polignac
Laurence Binyon
Felix E. Schelling
Sarah Perkins Cope
John Drummond
Mary Barnard
Mary Barnard
Laurence Binyon
Mary Barnard
W. H. D. Rouse
Henry Swabey
E. E. Cummings
C. K. Ogden
Arnold Gingrich
C. K. Ogden
W. H. D. Rouse
E. E. Cummings
W. H. D. Rouse
Henry Swabey
W. H. D. Rouse
T. S. Eliot
W. H. D. Rouse
W. H. D. Rouse
W. H. D. Rouse
W. H. D. Rouse
Harriet Monroe
John Cournos
Basil Bunting
15
30 October
23 November
7 January
15 January
21 January
22 January
2 February
(?February>
23 February
<?March>
6 March
April
22 April
30 May
13 August
13 August
30 August
18 December
30 December
24 January
25 January
28 January
30 January
7 February
22 February
February
February
3 March
18 March
28 March
17 April
April
23 May
6 June
13 August
25 September
December
33i
33*
334
335
335
336
337
338
339
339
340
34i
342
343
345
345
347
348
349
352
352
353
354
355
35^
35*
357
358
359
360
361
362
3«3
364
36$
366
366
Contents
W 6
304. To James Laughlin
305. To Henry Swabey
306. To Joseph Gordon MacLeod
►307. To T. S. Eliot
.308. To T. S. Eliot
309. To Laurence Pollinger
310. To Katue Kitasono
311. To Tibor Serly
312. To Eric Mesterton
313. To Gerhart Munch
314. To Agnes Bedford
315. To Henry Swabey
<?5 > January
26 March
28 March
25 April
26 April
May
24 May
(September)
December
December
December
19 December
307
367
368
370
370
37i
37*
372
373
374
375
375
1937
"3 1 6.
3 X 7.
318.
319.
320.
321.
322.
323.
324.
3*5-
326.
327.
328.
329.
330.
331.
332.
333-
334.
335-
336.
337.
*3«-
T. T. S. Eliot
To H. L. Mencken
To Ronald Duncan
To W. H. D. Rouse
To F. V. Morley
To Laurence Pollinger
To F. V. Morley
To Laurence Pollinger
To Henry Swabey
To Ronald Duncan
To Hilaire Hiler
To Katue Kitasono
To John Lackay Brown
To F. V. Morley
To W. H. D. Rouse
To Michael Roberts
To Katue Kitasono
To W. H. D. Rouse
To W. H. D. Rouse
To Gerald Hayes
To Montgomery Butchart
To M. Butchart and R. Duncan
To T. S. Eliot
1938
339. To Carlo Izzo
January
24 January
27 January
January
February
February
February
February
22 February
10 March
10 March
11 March
April
9 May
May
July
23 October
30 October
4 November
30 November
11 December
11 December
14 December
8 January
377
377
378
37*
379
38c
38c
381.
38^
38:
38-
38,
38:
3 8<
38:
38!
38<
39<
39
39
39
3-'
39
39
16
Content
340. To
341. To
342. To
.343. To
344. To
345. To
346. To
347. To
348. To
349. To
350. To
351. To
*939
352. To
353. To
354. To
355. To
356. To
357. To
358. To
359. To
360. To
361. To
362. To
♦363. To
364. To
365. To
1940
366. To
367. To
^368. To
369. To
„370. To
371. To
72, To
373. To
374- To
375- To
376. To
B
Otto Bird
9 January
398
Ronald Duncan
17 March
400
James Taylor Dunn
12 April
401
T. S. Eliot
16 April
401
Laurence Binyon
22 April
402
Laurence Binyon
25 April
403
William P. Shepard
April
407
Laurence Binyon
4 May
407
Laurence Binyon
6 May
409
Laurence Binyon
8 May
410
Laurence Binyon
12 May
412
Katue Kitasono
10 December
414
Ronald Duncan
io January
4i5
Ronald Duncan
17 January
4i5
Ford Madox Ford
31 January
416
Hubert Creekmore
February
417
Wyndham Lewis
3 August
418
Ronald Duncan
6 August
419
Henry Swabey
2 September
420
Douglas McPherson
2 September
420
Tibor and Alice Serly
October
422
Henry Swabey
31 October
423
Douglas McPherson
3 November
423
A. B. Drew
7 November
425
Ronald Duncan
7 November
427
George Santayana
8 December
428
Otto Bird
12 January
429
George Santayana
16 January
430
T. S. Eliot
18 January
43i
Katue Kitasono
22 January
433
T. S. Eliot
1 February
433
H. G. Wells
3 February
434
George Santayana
<5 February
436
Henry Swabey
7 March
437
Ronald Duncan
14 March
438
Sadakichi Hartmann
20 March
440
Ronald Duncan
30 March
440
17
Contents
377. To Ronald Duncan
378. To Tibor Serly
379. To Henry Swabey
380. To Henry Swabey
381. To Katue Kitasono
382. To Katue Kitasono
383. To Katue Kitasono
31 March
April
20 April
9 May
29 October
15 November
22 November
441
442
444
444
445
447
448
1941
384. To Katue Kitasono
Index
12 March
449
45i
1*
FOREWORD
If ^Pouncfc had any reputation as a letter-writer before 191 5, and he
probably had, it was a private reputation amongst $ii$) friends. When in
that year Harriet Monroe printed a few of his letters in Poetry (Chicago)
as hints to youthful talents, she made public another aspect of his genius.
His correspondence immediately began to acquire, deviously and, as it
were, subterraneously, an enviable reputation. It grew alike privately
and publicly, fed in the former instance by the passing about of letters
and in the latter by their scrappy publication in literary magazines, until
it became for about five years nearly as well-established as his legitimate
reputation.
But as Pound's interest in those magazines waned or became diverted
and the editors no longer received letters to print in their back pages
under ' Correspondence', the public part of that fame came, in the years
immediately following, almost to be forgotten. As for the private part:
he lost interest in certain of the young with whom he had corresponded
prior to 1920; and he moved to Paris. There the post-war young American
or Briton sought him out in person rather than by letter. And the scope
of his correspondence fell off thereby.
When T. S. Eliot wrote of him in the January 1928 number of The
Dial 'His epistolary style is masterly', the statement was almost a revela-
tion to a later generation. A few years afterwards, Margaret Anderson,
one of the editors of The Little Review, published her autobiography.
She remarked that Pound's letters, flowing torrentially from London,
bearing blasts and blesses as startling as those in BLAST 'and accompany-
ing the manuscripts of Eliot, Lewis, and Joyce, might themselves have
filled an exciting number of the magazine. As earnest whereof she printed
about a dozen of them. They bore out her statement and Eliot's as well.
Such meagre evidences — to which one must add those letters which Miss
Monroe printed in her autobiography — were about all that appeared in
print.
But Pound's really firm and unshakeable epistolary eminence came less
from the printed letters, one suspects, than from the direct reading of the
originals. After he settled in Rapallo, his private correspondence became,
in fact, public in extent as it had always been in interest. By the thirties
it had taken .on Napoleonic proportions anihe began to keep a file of
carbon copies of his letters — ' otherwise I couldn't remember what I wrote
to this or that bloke*. And the list of correspondents was indeed various,
19
foreword
for in addition to letters from old friends and contemporaries there came,
for the most part unsought, letters from instructors of history, from
diplomatic officials, from classical scholars, from politicians, from pro-
fessors of economics — from those of them, that is, who wanted frank
speaking along lines of unofficial thought.
Above all, letters arrived from 'les jeunes' — as he never tired of calling
them — from batch after batch of them. Fifteen and twenty years after
those great days when he got himself, Eliot, Lewis, and Joyce into the
pages of a single magazine, each succeeding generation still considered
him as one of them, with, perhaps, a slight edge of experience, and still
sought him out. From as far off as Japan ! The tone of his prose criticism,
\$th its coruscations, its ellipses, its dogmatisms, its gay carnival air, its
unwillingness to enjoy the safety gravity offers, its violence against en-
trenched stupidity and its championings of fresh writers — all that simply
encouraged them to approach him. A tremendous lure !
A little magazine was to be started in Nebraska or London? It had to
have Pound's co-operation, or at least his blessing. Forthwith a letter
to Rapallo. One disagreed with the lists in 'How to Read'? A letter to
Rapallo. One had written a forty-page poem which no editor wished to
print? A letter to Rapallo. Under such circumstances, given certain tastes,
desires, and perceptions, it became difficult not to meet someone who
corresponded with Pound. He wrote, one formed the impression, to
anyone.
Consequently you would one day meet a young man who had received
a letter from Pound or possibly had borrowed it from a friend of the
recipient. He would show a largish, square-shaped envelope, addressed in
blue ink with a sputtering pen and with a small blue stamp in the corner.
You would extract the sheets, unfold them. At the top framed in a heavy
rectangle, the Gaudier sketch of Pound. And then, as highly individual as
another person's hand might be, two or three pages of typewriting, with
marginal interpolations in pen. The letter might begin: 'Dear F/ Yrz/ to
hand. Partly horse sense an' pawtly nuts.' And then continue with a
distinction between the ownership of the means of production and the
proper distribution of the fruits thereof, the whole being, perhaps, an
exhortation to a leftist to consider the ideas of Douglas and Gesell as
implements to Communism. Scattered through the letter might be scraps
of literary advice: 'If you are nuwelizing, read H/J// Learn how to do
it/ or one way of doing it// No excuse for iggorunce.' Or: 'Poetical
prose??? Hell// The great writing in either p or p consists in getting the
subject matter onto paper with the fewest possible folderols and anti-
macassars. When the matter isn't real, no amount of ornament will save
20
Foreword
it. The inner structure is the poetry. And the prose-poetry stunt is
merely soup/ lacking the rhythmic validity of verse. (By which I don't
mean the cuckoo-clock of traditional British metric.) Great writer (Hardy)
has forgotten he exists. Got his mind on what he is telling.'
All of which was nothing like one's previous experience of letters. I do
not mean in the abbreviations, the deliberate misspellings, the capitaliza-
tions and the use of slanted lines for much of his punctuation. One recol-
lects that at the time diey scarcely bothered one; one was too interested in
what he was saying. Pound scattered such dicta with incredible profusion,
in letter after letter, with no apparent exhaustion of idea or of 'the glitter-
ing phrase' to contain it. The impression may be incorrect, yet one holds
it firmly, that it would be difficult to find more than two dozen pages of
Keats's or Shelley's or Swift's correspondence that would have any other
than biographical interest. The same seems true of Byron's letters; but
those, in their racy informality of style and their brusque changes of
subject, bear some resemblance to Pound's. But that is as close as one
can come to congeners. The simple fact remains that Pound's letters are ,
unique.
He came, a sort of flaming Savonarola, into a literary world which, as
Wyndham Lewis has pointed out, preferred brilliant amateurism to a
professional concern for the arts. Pound saw the dangers to perfection
inherent in such an attitude. To him art was not something one could
practise a certain number of hours a day, with Saturdays and Sundays
4 off'. Art was instead a kind of life, a life which kept one's ' private life', in
the most ordinary sense, to a minimum.
This attitude is clear throughout his letters. He very rarely writes
gossip or sends news of himself. As one goes through thousands of pages
of letters, one remains impressed instead by his sustained devotion — I was
about to say to art — to humanity. He justly believed that humanity
deserved the best — in art, in ethics, in an economic system that would
insure the just distribution of goods. It was kept from the best by a few
simians who maintained themselves in offices of power only because the
really first-rate men had not concerned themselves with approaching those
who controlled the offices. A naive attitude, perhaps, but we find it ex-
pressed again and again in his letters. In such spirit he wrote to Harriet
Monroe on the 22nd of October 1912: 'I'm the kind of ass that believes in
the public intelligence. I believe your "big business man" would rather
hear a specialist's opinion, even if it's wrong, than hear a rumour, a dicta-
tion.' I shall return later to this aspect of Pound's correspondence. For the
moment, I wish to emphas ize its impersonal quality. H is letters do not
concern themselves with 'private life' — with what he scornfully calls
21
foreword
* laundry lists' — but with the health of the arts. For that reason they have
at times a messianic tone. Considering the stakes at hazard, one doesn't
wonder!
He was not, of course, the only man who held art in such seriousness,
but he was so constituted that he had not only abundant energies but
a civic sense acute to a degree which possibly only Americans can
understand. When Harriet Monroe wrote him late in 1931 that she
planned to retire, visit her sister in Cheefoo, and allow Poetry to die,
he replied:
'The intelligence of the nation more important than the comfort or
life of any one individual or the bodily life of a whole generation.
'It is difficult enough to give the god dam amoeba a nervous system.
'Having done your bit to provide a scrap of rudimentary ganglia amid
the wholly bestial suet and pig fat, you can stop; but I as a responsible
intellect do not propose (and have no right) to allow that bit of nerve
tissue (or battery wire) to be wrecked merely because you have a sister
in Cheefoo or because there are a few of your friends whom it would be
pleasanter to feed or spare than to shoot/
As he recognized, the health of the arts, of economic ideas, could not be
the concern of a single person. He had to form, in so far as the power was
vouchsafed him, an avant-garde: in a military as well as in the literary
sense. He had to produce a generation that would battle for the arts with
the same vigour and tenacity with which he battled. The personal letter
was his means of contact, and his high aim determined its extent.
The editor, when naming off to Pound those from whom to solicit
letters for this edition, mentioned Jules Romains and got the following
reply: 'Nothing there. It was not necessary to repeat to Romains. He was
active* And indeed, Pound's best letters are those to people from whom
he had to remove some sort of inertia, whether of simple physical action
or of ignorance, and not, as one might think, to old friends and colleagues
like Joyce, Eliot, and Lewis. They had their own jobs to do and their own
ways of doing them. Discussion on these points was out of the question,
for they are what make those personalities interesting artists.
The bulk and interest of his letters to Harriet Monroe testify to no
physical inertia on her part. She was active enough. But he had to over-
come in her an inertia of ignorance. It was sometimes difficult for her to
understand quite simple things. In a note to his article entitled 'The
Renaissance: I, The Palette' printed in the February 191 5 number of
Poetry ', Pound had written: 'I have not in this paper, set out to give a
whole history of poetry. I have said, as it were, "Such poets are pure
red . . . pure green". Knowledge of them is of as much use to a poet as the
22
Foreword
finding of good colour is to a painter/ To this note Miss Monroe appended
hers, in which she declared that there was pure colour in Poe's 'Helen',
in 'Kubla Khan', in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' and concluded with:
'But certain Shakespearean songs and sonnets would be the basis of my
palette.' Pound wrote her with some irritation: 'Your note is bewrying.
The whole point of a "palette" is that it has various pure colours. Shx.
lyrics — maximum of their own tone or colour — yes. But "basis of palette"
is a foolish expression.'
Pound had to overcome as well her narrow conception of poetry. In
later years he wrote her frankly about her limitations: ' [They] can be
pardoned to you, but not tolerated in themselves, or for themselves.'
Fortunately she possessed enormous goodwill and courage. If, in the years
191 2-17, she at the beginning rebelled against printing H.D., Frost, and
Eliot, she could ultimately be convinced by those letters issuing first from
10 Church Walk and later from 5 Holland Place Chambers. Even if — as
in the case of Eliot — it took six months ! Doubtless she printed the best of
what came to her hand independently of Pound's influence, but for years
the average measure of that verse can be taken from the following lines
chosen at random from a 191 3 issue of Poetry:
Stream, stream, stream
Oh the willows by the stream;
The poplars and the willows
And the gravel all agleamf
But those lines measure not only Poetry; they measure as well the magazine
verse of the time. And the established magazines did not, of course, print
Pound or Eliot or H.D. or Frost. That glory was Miss Monroe's. It
would be saying too much that Pound thrust greatness upon her; but one
wonders, had he not been there with that acute civic sense, with those
prodding letters ?
His correspondence with the young falls into the category of letters to
inactive persons. The young were learning; they stood at the verge of
action. Pound undertook, like an inspired pedagogue, to set them into
action fully armed with a knowledge of their personalities. He spent a
great deal of time and energy on them, even on those who showed little
talent, for they, too, might prove of use. 'I don't lay as much stock', he
wrote Miss Monroe in 193 1, 'by teachin' the elder generation as by teachin'
the risin', and if one gang dies without learnin' there is always the next.
Keep on remindin' 'em that we ain't bolcheviks, but only the terrifyin'
voice of civilization, kulchuh, refinement, aesthetic perception.' And he
did teach the rising generations. Those who produced, produced; those
*3
Foreword
who did not produce at least reminded others what that terrifyin' voice
was.
In his four decades of activity, he received many hundreds of pages of
manuscript from the young, together with appeals for criticism. A pros-
pect of labours that might have staggered a professional instructor of
composition! But Pound assumed such fatigues as though they were
duties. When he discerned any talent, he replied with page after page of
detailed suggestions. When he did not perceive any interest in the work
he said so with what must have been a stunning frankness, as in a letter
of 1933: 'I don't think there is any chance for any yng. feller making a
dent in the pubk. or highly select consciousness by means of pomes writ
in the style of 191 3/1 5. An thet's flat and no use my handlin you with
gloves.'
Although most of his criticism was highly specific, he recognized that
thereby a danger inhered in it: that of impressing his own tone and per-
sonality upon the manuscripts submitted to him. (In his criticisms of the
work even of elder men, whose personalities might be presumed to be
fixed, he refrained from too much verbal suggestion. When he felt it
necessary, as in his word-by- word examination of Binyon's translation of
the Purgatorio — here reduced to one-third its original length — he would
produce something (say a pseudo-Chaucerian pair of lines) out of tone
with the rest of the manuscript, so that the writer would be stimulated to
a new solution independent of Pound's.) With his young 'students'
(there seems to be no other word), he allayed the danger by giving them
reading lists that would serve to develop their own personalities and, at
the same time, answer certain problems of expression and thereby relieve
the pressure upon himself. In 19 16 he put Iris Barry through a formidable
regimen. He was evidently pleased with die result, for the reading lists
and suggestions in that series of letters later became the basis of his
•How to Read'.
He considered that his function was to save the young time and error,
and his aim, as he put it, to turn proselytes into disciples. After the publi-
cation of 'How to Read,' he referred his correspondents to that pamphlet.
If they had read it and had pursued, in so far as they were able, the recom-
mended readings, he offered advice and put them in touch with others of
his correspondents, generally those of the same city or college. And some-
times a young man so introduced would come weeping back in the next
letter that he did not agree with X, or Y, whom he had met through
Pound. A letter like that could make him explode into:
'If you are looking for people who agree with you! ! ! ! How the hell
many points of agreement do you suppose there were between Joyce,
*4
Foreword
W. Lewis, Eliot and yrs. truly in 191 7; or between Gaudier and Lewi9 in
1913; or between me and Yeats, etc.?
'If you agree that there ought to be decent writing, something
expressing the man's ideas, not prune juice to suit the pub. taste or
your taste, you will have got as far as any 'circle' or 'world' ever has.
'If another man has ideas of any kind (not borrowed cliches) that
irritate you enough to make you think or take out your own ideas and
look at 'em, that is all one can expect.'
He constantly urged the young to form groups. It was very difficult. He
would seldom bring them to understand that 'it requires more crit.
faculty to discover the hidden 10% positive, than to fuss about 90%
obvious imperfections', or that, above a certain level, differences — of
taste, of view-point, of technique, of material, of belief — ought to exist.
They generally proved much less resilient than Miss Monroe. He once
persuaded her to allow Louis Zukofsky to edit a number of Poetry, the
' Objectivist Number'. After the act, somewhat appalled at the result, she
wrote Pound that the number did not seem to 'record a triumph' for that
group. Pound agreed, but insisted that the point of the number was that
the mode of presentation was good editing: 'The zoning of different
states of mind, so that one can see what they are, is good editing.' And he
continued: 'Get some other damn group and see what it can do. What
about the neo-Elinor-Wylites? ... Or the neo-hogbutcherbigdriftites?'
Both die editorial and the propaedeutic advice of his letters formed a
part of his vast effort to create a milieu in which art could exist. Conscious,
as I have indicated, that it was not a job for a single person however great
his energies, he usually called into service existing institutions. For they
had, after all, an organization and contact with a part of the public. In
his great magazine ventures — Poetry, The Egoist, and The Little Review
— he employed already established facilities in order to provide space for
serious writers and to divert money to them. If, before 19 17, The Little
Review did not print the best work available, it had shown at least
an attitude with which Pound could sympathize. He had simply to con-
vince the editors of the importance of printing Eliot or Lewis or Joyce
or some new poet who had sought him out in London or who had written
from some remote township in, say, Indiana.
But there was a job ancillary to that of providing a means of circulation
for contemporary writers, that of cleansing stables. He went at it with a
flaming American zeal, as John Brown had gone at slavery or Carrie
Nation at rum. Unlike them, he did not seek to destroy out of hand, for
his letters reveal that he thought well of nearly all organizations and
institutions, from magazines through universities to governments — in
M
Foreword
their ideal forms. A bad magazine or university or government had merely
departed from its ideal; perhaps because time had gone on and left it
struggling for aims that were no longer valid, perhaps because it had been
warped. The first of these did not bother him much. Such institutions,
while they lent a faintly musty odour of decayed thought to the ambience,
would die without his help. What moved him to decided action was the
warped institution, which he assumed might function properly but for
ignorance at the top, and consequently he bent his efforts to educating it.
This would seem to be an excess of optimism. But he partakes of that
American trait. Consider, for example, one of his earliest attempts to
reform an institution. In 1916 he wrote to Professor Felix Schelling of the
University of Pennsylvania suggesting that the English faculty institute a
* fellowship given for creative ability regardless of whether the man had
any university degree whatsoever*. He went on to name Carl Sandburg
as a candidate for such a fellowship. Professor Schelling replied with what
Pound regarded as the epitaph for the American university system: 'The
university is not here for the unusual man.' Pound apparently learned,
for when in 1929 that university wrote asking him for money, he added
the following postscript to an already negative answer: 'All the U. of P.
or your god damn college or any other god damn American college does
or will do for a man of letters is to ask him to go away without breaking
the silence.' But five years later in reply to a letter from Professor
Schelling he wrote: 'You ain't so old but what you cd. wake up. And you
are too respected and respectable for it to be any real risk. They can't
fire you now. Why the hell don't you have a bit of real fun before you get
tucked under? ' A last-act repentance as the curtain falls !
Or consider, again, that he was not at all awed by the magnitude of
an economic reform that he had undertaken. Letters went out to friends
and acquaintances, senators and M.P.s, with astonishing fluency. Here,
perhaps, he may have lost a sense of proportion, but the matter was of
desperate urgency. He saw Europe drifting towards a war that could have
been avoided by a simple currency reform. Under such conditions,
nothing that promised alleviation was too remote for him to try. In 1934
he wrote to Salvador de Madariaga, an old acquaintance of his from
London days, asking him to introduce the theories of Douglas in the
Cortes of the new Spanish republic. After all, why not? Serious things
were at stake, and Spain had given evidence that she wanted economic
justice for her people. The peak of his optimism is reached in a letter of
the ijth of September 1935, to John Cournos. 'Are you,' he wrote, 'in
touch with any of these Rhooshun blokes you write about in Criterion}}
As there is no way of getting one grain of sense into Communists outsiAt
26
Foreword^
Russia, would there be any way of inducing any Rhoosian intelligentzia
to consider Douglas and Gesell?'
Sanguine perhaps, but not comic. The well-being of millions of people
depends upon mankind's adopting a system of economic justice. Pound's
eagerness to approach every person or organization that gave any promise,
however slight, of moving towards that ideal is the gauge of his serious-
ness.
He never sentimentalized over humanity; in fact, its obtuseness fre-
quently irritated him. Nevertheless, what strikes one in nearly every
letter he wrote is his sustained devotion to it.
The present book owes its being to that devotion. It is one effort more
to communicate with an epoch.
If the editor has managed by the arrangement and selection of these
letters to illuminate Pound's own work and to convey the history of the
chief artistic developments of the past forty years, in so much as these
touched Pound, he will have succeeded in his aim. There remains the
portrait of the artist's personality. That emerges perforce; it is none of
the editor's doing.
The letters have come from various sources: from the recipients them-
selves, from collectors, and from libraries. The loss of many letters to
political confiscations, bombings, and climatic conditions — those, for
example, to Aldington, Dulac, Hemingway, and Rodker — suggests that
this collection has not been made too soon. Such early letters as are lost
may be presumed to be completely lost. Those of later years can often
be supplied by carbon copies, to which Mr. Pound has generously given
the editor access. These carbon copies have been used to fill in gaps left
by the editor's inability to get in touch with correspondents or with
executors or to spare time-claimed correspondents the fatigue of search-
ing out the originals. In all cases he has sought the permission of corre-
spondents or executors to use the carbons. When he has not received
replies, he has nevertheless used the letters.
A Note on the Editing
Deletions. Deletions have been indicated by the following symbols:
indicates that one to twenty-five words or thereabouts have
been dropped; — / — / indicates that about twenty-five to fifty words have
been dropped; and — / — / indicates that more than fifty words have been
dropped. The first of these symbols occurs frequently with proper names,
and in such juxtaposition generally indicates that the person's address has
been deleted. All other deletions have been made in order to avoid
repetitions or to eliminate material of little general interest. In each letter
»7
^Foreword
the editor has aimed to keep deletions to a minimum and to present the
whole letter.
Suppressions. Names have been suppressed according to the following
scheme: (a) initial letter followed by periods — used when a harsh critical
comment, untempered by favourable remarks in other letters, is made
about a living artist;
(A) final letter preceded by dots when the comment is not critical or when
the name stands as a symbol of evil;
(c) letters followed by a long dash when complete suppression is
desirable.
Notes. The editor has tried to avoid an excess of footnotes and where
possible has interpolated explanatory matter in the text between mon-
angular brackets.
Punctuation, Spelling, and Emphases. As has been indicated by several
quotations above, these are anything but normal, and they have put the
editor in considerable dilemma, for to hold to the letter would have made
a book intolerable to read, while to set all things aright would have missed
some of Pound's epistolary savour. The editor has accordingly compro-
mised. The slanted line is replaced by more normal marks of punctuation,
but regularization has been avoided. Misspellings have been corrected.
Plays on spelling have been thinned out (but not eliminated) only when
they have come so thickly as to retard the reader. These changes are very
few. Pound's emphases in his typed letters came more and more to be
indicated by capitals instead of by underlinings — evidently to avoid the
loss of time in going back and underlining a word. But even capitalized
words are sometimes doubly and triply underlined in ink. The editor has
indicated these capitalizations by italics when the words have not been
re-emphasized, and by small capitals when they have been.
The general aim has been to present a volume that can be read consecu-
tively with as little eye fatigue as possible. The editor alone is responsible
for these prettyings up. In short, the excellencies of the book are Mr.
Pound's and the faults the editor's.
Thanks are due to Mr. and Mrs. Pound and to the following individuals
and institutions: Charles Abbott, Director, Lockwood Memorial Library,
University of Buffalo; John Alden, Curator of Rare Books, University of
Pennsylvania Library; Richard Aldington; Margaret Anderson; Mary
Barnard; Agnes Bedford; Cecily Binyon; William Bird; Judith Bond,
Curator, Harriet Monroe Collection, University of Chicago Library;
Basil Bunting; Montgomery Butchart; Lena Caico; Sarah Perkins Cope;
John Cournos; Hubert Creekmore; E. E. Cummings; John Drummond;
Edmund Dulac; Ronald Duncan; T. S. Eliot; Arnold Gingrich; Douglas
a8
Foreword
Goldring; W. W. Hatfield; Ernest Hemingway; Hilaire Hiler; Houghton
Library, Harvard University; Sisley Huddleston; Glenn Hughes; Lang-
ston Hughes; Joseph Darling Ibbotson; Maria Jolas; Norah Joyce; Katue
Kitasono; James Laughlin; A. W. Lawrence; Wyndham Lewis; H. L.
Mencken; Fred R. Miller; Marianne Moore; F. V, Morley; Gerhart
Munch; New York Public Library; N. H. Pearson; Laurence Pollinger;
John Rodker; Olga Rudge; Peter Russell; George Santayana; John
Scheiwiller; Henry Swabey; Ren6 Taupin; Harriet Shaw Weaver; T. C.
Wilson; Donald Wing; and the Yale University Library.
29
CHRONOLOGY
1885 — 30 October, born in Hailey, Idaho.
1901-7 — College. 13 June 1907 received Master's degree. Summer, went
to Spain as Harrison Fellow (University of Pennsylvania) to pursue
researches on Lope. Autumn, professor of Spanish and French at
Wabash College. Winter, Europe: Gibraltar, Spain, Venice.
1908 — June, A Lume Spento published in Venice. To London. December,
A Quin^ainefor this Yule published.
1909 — April, Personae published. Meetings with Frederic Manning, T. E.
Hulme, Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford), W. B. Yeats. Autumn, Exulta-
tions published.
1 910 — Lectures on Romance literature. First expression of aesthetic
principles in The Spirit of Romance. Provenca (poems), first American
publication. Summer, returned to America. Meeting with John Quinn.
191 1 — February, returned to London. Can^oni published.
191 2 — Ripostes published. First announcement of Imagism in the fore-
word to the poems of T. E. Hulme appended to that volume. Sonnets
and Ballate ofGuido Cavalcanti October, became foreign correspon-
dent of Poetry (Chicago).
1913 — March, 'A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste' in Poetry (Chicago).
April, 'Contemporania' poems published. Oriental studies begun.
1 914 — January, first of his notes on Joyce. February, anthology Des
Imagistes published. April, married to Dorothy Shakespear. June,
contributions to Lewis's BLAST. September, 'Vorticism' published
in The Fortnightly Review.
1915 — April, Cathay published. Edited Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson.
Second number of BLAST. December, Catholic Anthology, intro-
ducing the work of Eliot.
1 9 16 — June, Certain Noble Plays of Japan. Gaudier-Br^ska, a Memoir.
Lustra.
1 9 17 — Nohy or Accomplishment. Foreign editor of The Little Review.
June, July and August, first three Cantos published in Poetry. Dialogues
of Fontenelle. Passages from the Letters of John Butler Yeats.
1918 — Pavannes and Divisions.
1919 — Homage to Sextus Propertius. Quia Pauper Amavi. The Fourth
Canto. Economic studies begin.
1920 — Collaboration with The Dial. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. June,
meeting with Joyce. Instigations. Umbra.
3*
Chronology
1921 — Leaves England for France. June, settles in Paris. Poems: 1918-
1911. Winter, maieutic efforts on The Waste Land.
1922 — Attempt to launch 'Bel Esprit'. Studies with Rousellot.
1923 — Edits 'The Inquest* for William Bird's Three Mountains Press.
Indiscretions.
1924 — Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony. April, illness; leaves France
for Italy. XVI Cantos.
1925 — February, settles in Rapallo. Composition of his opera Villon.
1926 — Publication of Personae (New York).
1927 — Translation of Ta Hio. His quarterly, Exile, launched. Wins Dial
award.
1928 — 'How to Read'. Researches on Guido Cavalcanti approach
completion.
1930 — Publication of XXX Cantos.
1 93 1 — Publication of Guido Cavalcanti Rime.
1933 — Active Anthology.
1934 — Make It New. ABC of Reading. ABC of Economics. Eleven New
Cantos.
1935 — Jefferson and) or Mussolini. Social Credit: An Impact.
1937 — Fifth Decad of Cantos. Polite Essays.
1938 — Guide to Kulchur. July, 'Mang Tsze' published in The Criterion.
1940 — Cantos LII-LXXI.
3*
PART I: LONDON
1907
i: To Felix E. Schelling
IPyncote, Pa. y 16 January
My dear Dr. Schelling: I have already begun work on 'II Candelak)'
which is eminently germane to my other romance work and in which I
have considerable interest.
On the other hand, since the study of Martial there is nothing I approach
with such nausea and disgust as Roman life (Das Privatleben). Of course
if you consider the latter of more importance, I shall endeavor to make
my hate do as good work as my interest.
35
1908
2: To William Carlos Williams
London, 21 October
Dear Bill: Glad to hear from you at last.
Good Lord ! of course you don't have to like the stuff I write. I hope the
time will never come when I get so fanatical as to let a man's like or dislike
for what I happen to 'poetare' interfere with an old friendship or a new
one.
Remember, of course, that some of the stuff is dramatic and in die
character of die person named in the title.
The 'Decadence,' which is one of the poems I suppose in your index \
expurgatorius, is the expression of the decadent spirit as I conceive it. The
Villonauds are likewise what I conceive after a good deal of study to be an
expression akin to, if not of, the spirit breathed in Villon's own poeting.
' Fifine' is the answer to the question quoted from Browning's own ' Fifine
at the Fak.'
Will continue when I get back from an appointment.
And once more to the breech.
I am damn glad to get some sincere criticism anyhow. Now let me to die
defence. It seems to me you might as well say that Shakespeare is dissolute
in his plays because Falstaff is, or that the plays have a criminal tendency
because there is murder done in them.
To me the short so-called dramatic lyric — at any rate the sort of thing I
do— is the poetic part of a drama the rest of which (to me the prose part) is
left to the reader's imagination or implied or set in a short note. I catch the
character I happen to be interested in at the moment he interests me,
usually a moment of song, self-analysis, or sudden understanding or reve-
lation. And the rest of the play would bore me and presumably the reader.
I paint my man as I conceive him. Et voil& tout!
Is a painter's art crooked because he paints hunch-backs?
I wish you'd spot the bitter, personal notes and send 'em over to me for
inspection. Personally I think you get 'em by reading in the wrong tone of
voice. However, you may be right. Hilda (Doolittle) seems about as
pleased with the work as you are. Mosher is going to reprint. W. B. Yeats
3<S
1908— aetat 22
applies the adjective 'charming/ but they feel no kindly responsibility for
the morals and future of the author.
As for preaching poetic anarchy or anything else: heaven forbid. I
record symptoms as I see 'em. I advise no remedy. I don't even draw the
disease usually. Temperature 102-3/8, pulse 78, tongue coated, etc., eyes
yellow, etc.
As for the 'eyes of too ruthless public': damn their eyes. No art ever yet
grew by looking into the eyes of the public, ruthless or otherwise. You can
obliterate yourself and mirror God, Nature, or Humanity but if you try to
mirror yourself in the eyes of the public, woe be unto your art. At least
that's the phase of truth that presents itself to me.
I wonder whether, when you talk about poetic anarchy, you mean a life
lawlessly poetic and poetically lawless mirrored in the verse; or whether
you mean a lawlessness in the materia poetica and metrica. Sometimes I
use rules of Spanish, Anglo-Saxon and Greek metric that are not common
in the English of Milton's or Miss Austen's day. I doubt, however, if you
are sufficiently au courant to know just what the poets and musicians and
painters are doing with a good deal of convention that has masqueraded
as law.
Au contraire, I am very sure that I have written a lot of stuff that would
please you and a lot of my personal friends more than A L(ume) S(pento).
But, mon cher, would a collection of mild, pretty verses convince any pub-
lisher or critic that / happen to be a genius and deserve audience? I have
written bushels of verse that could offend no one except a person as well-
read as I am who knows that it has all been said just as prettily before.
Why write what I can translate out of Renaissance Latin or crib from the
sainted dead?
Here are a list of facts on which I and 9,000,000 other poets have spieled
endlessly:
1. Spring is a pleasant season. The flowers, etc. etc. sprout bloom etc. etc
2. Young man's fancy. Lightly, heavily, gaily etc. etc.
3. Love, a delightsome tickling. Indefinable etc.
A) By day, etc. etc. etc B) By night, etc. etc. etc.
4. Trees, hills etc are by a provident nature arranged diversely, in
diverse places.
5. Winds, clouds, rains, etc flop thru and over 'em.
6. Men love women. (More poetic in singular, but the verb retains the
same form.)
(In Greece and Pagan countries men loved men, but the fact is no longer
mentioned in polite society except in an expurgated sense.) I am not
attracted by the Pagan custom but my own prejudices are not materia
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poetica. Besides I didn't get particularly lascivious in A.L.S. However, in
the above 6 groups I think you find the bulk of the poetic matter of die
ages. Wait —
7. Men fight battles, etc. etc.
8. Men go on voyages.
Beyond this, men think and feel certain things and see certain things not
with the bodily vision. About this time I begin to get interested and the
general too ruthlessly goes to sleep? To, however, quit this wrangle. If
you mean to say that A.L.S. is a rather gloomy and disagreeable book, I
agree with you. I thought that in Venice. Kept out of it one tremendously
gloomy series of ten sonnets — a la Thompson of the City of Dreadful
Night — which are poetically radier fine in spots. Wrote or attempted to
write a bit of sunshine, some of which — too much for my critical sense —
got printed. However, the bulk of the work (say 30 of the poems) is the
most finished work I have yet done.
I don't know that you will like the Quin^aine for this Yule any better.
Again as to the unconstrained vagabondism. If anybody ever shuts you
in Indiana for four months and you don't at least write some uncon-
strained something or other, I'd give up hope for your salvation. Again, if
you ever get degraded, branded with infamy, etc., for feeding a person
who needs food, 1 you will probably rise up and bless the present and sacred
name of Madame Grundy for all her holy hypocrisy. I am not getting bit-
ter. I have been more than blessed for my kindness and the few shekels cast
on the water have come back ten fold and I have no fight with anybody.
I am amused. The smile is kindly but entirely undiluted with reverence.
To continue. I am doubly thankful for a friend who'll say what he thinks
— after long enough consideration to know what he really thinks — and I
hope I'm going to be blessed with your criticism for as long as may be.
I wish you'd get a bit closer. I mean make more explicit and detailed
statements of what you don't like.
Bitter personal note??? 'Grace Before Song' — certainly not.
1 Pound spent the winter of 1907 at Wabash College, Crawfordsville,
Indiana, where he taught French and Spanish. After having read late one night,
he went into town through a blizzard to mail a letter. On the streets he found a
girl from a stranded burlesque show, penniless and hungry. The centennial
history of the college records that he fed her and took her to his rooms where
she spent the night in his bed and he on the floor of his study. Early in the
morning he left for an eight o'clock class. The Misses Hall, from whom he
rented the rooms, went up after his departure for the usual cleaning. They were
maiden ladies in a small mid- Western town and had let those rooms before
only to an elderly professor. They telephoned the president of the college and
several trustees; the affair thus made public, only one outcome was possible.
38
1908— aetat 22
•La Fraisne' — the man is half- or whole mad. Pathos, certainly, but
bitterness? I can't see it.
'Cino' — the thing is banal. He might be anyone. Besides he is cata-
logued in his epitaph.
' Audiart ' — nonsense.
* Villonaud for Yule.' ' Gibbet '—personal ? ? ?
* Mesmerism ' — impossible.
'Fifine' — ditto.
4 Anima Sola.' 'Senectus' — utterly impossible.
' Famam Librosque' — self-criticism, but I don't see it as bitter.
* Eyes ' — nonsense.
'Scrip, lg.' — ditto.
'Donzella Beata' — ditto.
'Vana.' 'Chasteus.' 'Decadence' — writ, in plural; even if not it is
answered and contradicted on the opposite page.
'The Fistulae' — nonsense.
Where are they? I may be the blind one.
Now to save me writing. Ecclesiastes 2:24; Proverbs 30:19. This is the
arrant vagabondism. The soul, from god, returns to him. But anyone who
can trace that course or symbolize it by anything not wandering. . . .
Perhaps you like pictures painted in green and white and gold and I
paint in black and crimson and purple?
However, speak out and don't become 'powerless to write that you
don't like.' There is one thing sickly-sweet: to wit, the flattery of those
that know nothing about the art and yet adore indiscriminately.
To your 'ultimate attainments of poesy,' what are they? I, of course, am
only at the first quarter-post in a marathon. I have, of course, not attained
them, but I wonder just where you think the tape is stretched for Mr. Hays,
' vittore ufficiale,' and Dorando Pietri, hero of Italy. (That was by the way
delightful to get in Italy and to get here one of the men who arranged the
events, one of the trainer sort who said Pietri would have never got there
if he hadn't been helped. 1 ) I wish, no fooling, that you would define your
ultimate attainments of poesy. Of course we won't agree. That would be
too uninteresting. I don't know that I can make much of a list.
1. To paint the thing as I see it.
2. Beauty.
3. Freedom from didacticism.
1 During thei 908 Olympic Games in England, Pietri collapsed two or three times
in the last metres of the twenty-five mile marathon race. As he arose in final effort
and staggered toward the tape, an enthusiastic timekeeper rushed onto the track
and supported Pietri for three metres, to break the tape. Pietri was disqualified.
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4* It is only good manners if you repeat a few other men to at least do it
better or more briefly. Utter originality is of course out of the ques-
tion. Besides the Punch Bowl covers that point.
Then again you must remember I don't try to write for the public. I
can't. I haven't that kind of intelligence. 'To such as love this same beauty
that I love somewhat after mine own fashion.'
Also I don't want to bore people. That is one most flagrant crime at this
stage of the world's condition. 19 pages of letter ought to prove that. I am
hopeless. 'Ma cosi son io.' Your letter is worth a dozen notes of polite
appreciation. Eccovi, an honest man. Diogenes put to shame.
Write now that the bars are down and tear it up. You may thereby help
me to do something better. Flattery never will.
My days of utter privation are over for a space.
P.S. The last line page 3 oiA.L.S. x ought to answer some of your letter.
1 * For I know that the wailing and bitterness are a folly'
1909
y. To William Carlos Williams
London, 3 February
Deer Bill: May I quote * Steve' on the occasion of my own firing: ' Gee ! !
wish I wuz fired ! ' Nothing like it to stir the blood and give a man a start
in life. Hope you shine the improving hour with poesy.
Am by way of falling into the crowd that does things here.
London, deah old Lundon, is the place for poesy.
Mathews is publishing my Personae and giving me the same terms he
gives Maurice Hewlett. As for your p'tit fr£re. I knew he'd hit the pike for
Dagotalia. When does he come over? I shall make a special trip to Ave
Roma immortalis to rehear the tale of * Meestair Robingsonnh.'
If you have saved any pennies during your stay in Neuva York, you'd
better come across and broaden your mind. American doctors are in great
demand in Italy, especially during the touring season. Besides, you'd
much prefer to scrap with an intelligent person like myself than with a
board of directing idiots.
4: To William Carlos Williams
London^ 11 May
I hope to God you have no feelings. If you have, burn this before reading.
Dear Billy: Thanks for your Poems. What, if anything, do you want me
to do by way of criticism?
?Is it a personal, private edtn. for your friends, or? ?
As proof that W.C.W. has poetic instincts the book is valuable. Au
contraire, if you were in London and saw the stream of current poetry, I
wonder how much of it you would have printed? Do you want me to
criticise it as if (it) were my own work?
I have sinned in nearly every possible way, even the ways I most con-
demn. I have printed too much. I have been praised by the greatest living
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poet. I am, after eight years' hammering against impenetrable adamant,
become suddenly somewhat of a success.
From where do you want me to show the sharpened 'blade'? Is there
anything I know about your book that you don't know?
Individual, original it is not. Great art it is not. Poetic it is, but there are
innumerable poetic volumes poured out here in Gomorrah. There is no
town like London to make one feel the vanity of all art except the highest.
To make one disbelieve in all but the most careful and conservative pre-
sentation of one's stuff. I have sinned deeply against the doctrine I preach.
Your book would not attract even passing attention here. There are fine
lines in it, but nowhere I think do you add anything to the poets you have
used as models.
If I should publish a medical treatise explaining that arnica was good for
bruises (or cuts or whatever it is) it would show that I had found out cer-
tain medical facts, but it would not be of great value to the science of medi-
cine. You see I am getting under weigh.
If you'll read Yeats and Browning and Francis Thompson and Swin-
burne and Rossetti you'll learn something about the progress of Eng.
poetry in the last century. And if you'll read Margaret Sackville, Rosa-
mund Watson, Ernest Rhys, Jim G. Fairfax, you'll learn what the people
of second rank can do, and what damn good work it is. You are out of
touch. That's all.
Most great poetry is written in the first person (i.e. it has been for about
2000 years). The 3rd is sometimes usable and the 2nd nearly always
wooden. (Millions of exceptions !) What's the use of this?
Read Aristotle's Poetics, Longinus' On the Sublime, De Quincey, Yeats'
essays.
Lect. I. Learn your art thoroughly. If you'll study the people in that 1st
lecture and then reread your stuff — you'll get a lot more ideas about it
than you will from any external critique I can make of the verse you have
sent me.
Vale et me ama !
P.S. And remember a man's real work is what he is going to do, not what
is behind him. Avanti e coraggio !
4*
1912
5: To Harriet Monroe
London, (18) August
Dear Madam: I am interested, and your scheme as far as I understand it
seems not only sound, but the only possible method. There is no other
magazine in America which is not an insult to the serious artist and to the
dignity of his art.
But? Can you teach the American poet that poetry is an art, an art with
a technique, with media, an art that must be in constant flux, a constant
change of manner, if it is to live? Can you teach him that it is not a penta-
metric echo of the sociological dogma printed in last year's magazines?
Maybe. Anyhow you have work before you.
I may be myopic, but during my last tortured visit to America I found
no writer and but one reviewer who had any worthy conception of
poetry, The Art. However I need not bore you with jeremiads.
At least you are not the usual 'esthetic magazine,' which is if anything
worse than the popular; for the esthetic magazine expects the artist to do all
the work, pays nothing and then undermines his credit by making his
convictions appear ridiculous.
Quant k moi: If you conceive verse as a living medium, on a par with
paint, marble and music, you may announce, if it's any good to you, that
for the present such of my work as appears in America (barring my own
books) will appear exclusively in your magazine. I think you might easily
get all the serious artists to boycott the rest of the press entirely. I can't
send you much at the moment, for my Arnaut Daniel 'has gone to the pub-
lisher, and the proofs of Ripostes are on my desk, and I've been working
for three months on a prose book. Even the Ripostes is scarcely more than
a notice that my translations and experiments have not entirely interrupted
my compositions.
I sincerely hope, by the way, that you mean what you say in your letter
— that it isn't the usual editorial suavity of which I've seen enough — for I
am writing to you very freely and taking you at your word.
Are you for American poetry or for poetry? The latter is more impor-
tant, but it is important that America should boost the former, provided it
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don't mean a blindness to the art. The glory of any nation is to produce art
that can be exported without disgrace to its origin.
I ask because if you do want poetry from other sources than America I
may be able to be of use. I don't think it's any of the artist's business to see
whether or no he circulates, but I was nevertheless tempted, on the verge
of starting a quarterly, and it's a great relief to know that your paper may
manage what I had, without financial strength, been about to attempt
rather forlornly.
I don't think we need go to the French extreme of having four prefaces
to each poem and eight schools for every dozen of poets, but you must
keep an eye on Paris. Anyhow I hope your ensign is not 'more poetry' !
but more interesting poetry, and maestria !
If I can be of any use in keeping you or the magazine in touch with
whatever is most dynamic in artistic thought, either here or in Paris — as
much of it comes to me, and I do see nearly everyone that matters — I shall
be glad to do so.
I send you all that I have on my desk — an over-elaborate post-Brown-
ing 'Imagiste' affair and a note on the Whistler exhibit. I count him our
only great artist, and even this informal salute, drastic as it is, may not be
out of place at the threshold of what I hope is an endeavor to carry into
our American poetry the same sort of life and intensity which he infused
into modern painting.
P.S. Any agonizing that tends to hurry what I believe in the end to be
inevitable, our American Risorgimento, is dear to me. That awakening
will make the Italian Renaissance look like a tempest in a teapot ! The force
we have, and the impulse, but the guiding sense, the discrimination in
applying the force, we must wait and strive for.
6: To Harriet Monroe
London, (24) September
Dear Miss Monroe: I've just written to Yeats. It's rather hard
to get anything out of him by mail and he won't be back in London until
November. Still I've done what I can, and as it's the first favor or about the
first that I've asked for three years, I may get something—' to set the tone.'
Also I'll try to get some of the poems of the very great Bengali poet,
Rabindranath Tagore. They are going to be the sensation of the win-
ter W.B.Y. is doing the introduction to them. They are translated by
the author into very beautiful English prose, with mastery of cadence.
44
1 91 2— aetat 26
I shall leave the 'literati' to themselves — they already support them-
selves very comfortably — unless there is someone whose work you parti-
cularly want. . . . We must be taken seriously at once. We must be the yoke
not only for the U.S. but internationally. ... I think we might print one
French poem a month. My idea of our policy is this: We support American
poets — preferably the young ones who have a serious determination to produce
master-work. We import only such work as is better than that produced at
home. The best foreign stuffs the stuff well above mediocrity ', or the experi-
ments that seem serious y and seriously and sanely directed toward the broaden-
ing and development of The Art of Poetry. l
And 'to hell with Harper's and the magazine touch' !
7: To Harriet Monroe
London, October
Dear Harriet Monroe: I've had luck again, and am sending
you some modern stuff by an American, I say modern, for it is in the laconic
speech of the Imagistes, even if the subject is classic. At least H.D. has
lived with these things since childhood, and knew them before she had any
book-knowledge of them.
This is the sort of American stuff that I can show here and in Paris with-
out its being ridiculed. Objective — no slither; direct — no excessive use of
adjectives, no metaphors that won't permit examination. It's straight talk,
straight as the Greek ! And it was only by persistence that I got to see it
at all.
8: To Harriet Monroe
London, 13 October
X
Dear Miss Monroe: I don't know that America is ready to be diverted by
the ultra-modern, ultra-effete tenuity of Contemporania.* 'The Dance'
has little but its rhythm to recommend it.
4 The Epilogue' refers to The Spirit of Romance to the experiments and
paradigms of form and metre — quantities, alliteration, polyphonic rimes
1 The italics were added by Pound in 1937, when this and several other letters
were printed in Harriet Monroe's autobiography.
2 A series of his poems published in Poetry (Chicago), April 1913.
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in Cawpni and Ripostes, and to the translations of The Sonnets andBallate
of Guido Cavaicantiy and The Can^oni of Arnaut Daniel (now in pub-
lisher's hands). It has been my hope that this work will help to break the
surface of convention and that the raw matter, and analysis of primitive
systems may be of use in building the new art of metrics and of words.
The 'Yawp' is respected from Denmark to Bengal, but we can't stop
with the 'Yawp.' We have no longer any excuse for not taking up the
complete art.
You must use your own discretion about printing this batch of verses.
At any rate, don't use them until you've used ' H.D.' and Aldington, s.v.p.
9: To Harriet Monroe
London, 22 October
Dear Harriet Monroe: I'm willing to stand alone I make
three enemies in a line — ' Noyes, Figgis, Abercrombie.' ... I raise up for
Abercrombie passionate defenders (vid. R. Brooke in the next Poetry
Review). Even Brooke can find little to say for Noyes, and nothing for
Figgis.
Until someone is honest we get nothing clear. The good work is
obscured, hidden in the bad. I go about this London hunting for the real.
I find paper after paper, person after person, mildly affirming the opinion
of someone who hasn't cared enough about the art to tell what he actually
believes.
It's only when a few men who know, get together and disagree that any
sort of criticism is born. ... I can give you my honest opinion from the
firing line, from ' the inside.' I'm the kind of ass that believes in the public
intelligence. I believe your 'big business men' would rather hear a
specialist's opinion, even if it's wrong, than hear a rumor, a dilutation. My
own belief is that the public is sick of lukewarm praise of the mediocre. . . .
It isn't as if I were set in a groove. I read any number of masters, and
recognize any number of kinds of excellence. But Fiji sick to loathing of
people who don't care for the master- work, who set out as artists with no
intention of producing it, who make no effort toward the best, who are
content with publicity and the praise of reviewers. I think the worst
betrayal you could make is to pretend for a moment that you are content
with a parochial standard. You're subsidized, you don't have to placate the
public at once. . . .
4*
19 1 2— aetat 26
Masefield was acclaimed. Nobody dared to say one word the other way.
The people who cared were puzzled. Here was something strange — one
liked his plays, or his sea-ballads, or something. . . . One lady said, 'It's
glorified Sims.' Several people liked 'the end.' Et ego suggested that he
would probably be the Tennyson of this generation. One man said: 'He
will appeal to lots of people who don't like poetry but who like to think
they like poetry.' . . .
If one is going to print opinions that the public already agrees with, what is
the use of printing y em at all? Good art can't possibly be palatable all at
once. . . .
Quiller-Couch wrote me a delightful old-world letter a week ago. He
hoped I did not despise the great name Victorian, and he wanted to put me
in the Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. This is no smrll honor — at least I
should count it a recognition. Nevertheless he had hit on two poems which
I had marked 'to be omitted' from the next edition of my work, and I've
probably mortally offended him by telling him so. At least I haven't heard
from him again. This is what happens if you've got a plymouth-rock con-
science landed on predilection for the arts. . . .
If a man writes six good lines he is immortal — isn't that worth trying
for? Isn't it worth while having one critic left who won't say a thing is good
until he is ready to stake his whole position on the decision? . . .
Twenty pages a month is O.K. — there's that much good stuff written.
You don't want the Henry Van Dyke kind — I'll write personally to any-
one you do want.
The French laugh, but it's not a corrosive or hostile laughter. In fact,
good art thrives in an atmosphere of parody. Parody is, I suppose, the best
criticism — it sifts the durable from the apparent.
I've got a right to be severe. For one man I strike there are ten to strike
back at me. I stand exposed. It hits me in my dinner invitations, in my
weekends, in reviews of my own work. Nevertheless it's a good fight.
10: To Harriet Monroe
London, December
Dear Miss Monroe: Yes, the ' Related Things' is more to my fancy. I had
no intention of trying to exclude you from your own magazine but you
know as well as I do that you could have written the 'Nogi' in four lines
if you'd had time to do so.
I've sent the 30 dollars to Tagore.
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For gord's sake don't print anything of mine that you think will kill
the Magazine, but so far as I personally am concerned the public can go to
the devil. It is the function of the public to prevent the artist's expression
by hook or by crook. Ancora e ancora. But be sure of this much that I
won't quarrel with you over what you see fit to put in the scrap basket.
I am, however, sending you a series of things 1 herewith which ought to
appear almost intact or not at all.
Given my head I'd stop any periodical in a week, only we are bound
to run five years anyhow, we're in such a beautiful position to save
the public's soul by punching its face that it seems a crime not to do
P.S. Yes, do chuck out 'the last one' — whichever it may be 2 — it's pro-
bably very bad.
1 The 'series of things' were additions to the * Contemporania' poems.
2 'The Epilogue,' vide supra, p. 45.
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1913
ii: To Homer L. Pound
London, January
Dear Dad: A deal of dull mail this A.M. Wrote yesterday
or day before, didn't 1 ? At least I can't think of anything much that's new.
Note from Tagore who has retired to Urbana, 111., where, as he says, his
friends * out of their kindness of heart ' leave him pretty much alone.
There is a charming tale of the last Durbar anent R.T. One Bengali here
in London was wailing to W.B.Y. 'How can one speak of patriotism of
Bengal, when our greatest poet has written this ode to the King?' And
Yeats taxing one of Rabindranath's students elicited this response. 'Ah! I
will tell you about that poem. The national committee came to Mr. Tagore
and asked him to write something for the reception. And as you know Mr.
Tagore is very obliging. And all that afternoon he tried to write them a
poem, and he could not. And that evening the poet as usual retired to his
meditation. And in the morning he descended with a sheet of paper. He
said "Here is a poem I have written. It is addressed to the deity. But you
may give it to the national committee. Perhaps it will content them.'"
The joke, which is worthy of Voltaire, is for private consumption only,
as it might be construed politically if it were printed.
Well, I've got to get on to affari.
12: To Alice Corbin Henderson
London, March
Dear A.CH.: I enclose some more Tagore for the May number. The one
marked ' 10 ' has gone to The Atlantic, but if they haven't yet accepted it
you can use it. It will save time for you to write them direct. Say that you
are going to use it unless they reply ' by return post that they are.'
Have just discovered another Amur'kn. 1 Vurry Amur'k'n, with, I
1 Robert Frost.
D 49
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think, the seeds of grace. Have reviewed an advance copy of his book, but
have run it out too long. Will send it as soon as I've tried to condense it —
also some of his stuff if it isn't all in the book.
13: To Harriet Monroe
London, March
Dear H.M.: Congratulations on March. While it contains nothing wildly
interesting, it contains nothing, or rather no group of poems, which is
wholly disgusting. I think the average 'feel* of the number is as good as
you've done.
My prose is bad, but on ne peut pas pontifier and have style simul-
taneously. I didn't set out for a literary composition or an oration. Still I
wish I'd done it a bit better — not that I care about convincing fools.
A formal treatise decently written would have taken forty pages any-
how.
I'm glad you're going to print ' Bill,' i.e. Wm. Carlos Williams.
McCoy needs licking worse than anyone else in March. The Davis per-
son has a tendency toward seeing things, also howling need of training.
Noyes adapts 'Bringing in the Sheaves' less amusingly than Lindsay did
'The Bloody Lamb,' also Alfred still lolls on the Kipple.
Goethe is dead (in the physical sense).
'I am called liberty' does not make a fetching termination to a poem.
Neither is there any valuable denouement in ending, full close, maxi-
mum impression desirable, etc., strong pull, 'years' and 'tears.' Harmless
rime, but to use it as ' ornament' on return to the ' tonic' especially after he
had spent a little thought on his rimes earlier in the poem. No, Mr. Tor-
rence, vous n'Stes pas artiste. — / — /
Good god ! isn't there one of them that can write natural speech without
copying cliches out of every Eighteenth Century poet still in the public
libraries? God knows I wallowed in archaisms in my vealish years, but
these imbeciles don't even take the trouble to get an archaism, which might
be silly and picturesque, but they get phrases out of just the stupidest and
worst-dressed periods.
Oft in the stilly night I dallied in the glade
On the banks of the Schuylkill as often I strayed.
The Davis person has caught up with 1890, like Kennerly, only she plys
the Celtic oar.
5°
1913 — aetat 2 7
I think you are probably taking the best of what comes in, but I do now
and then have a twinge of curiosity about what is being cast out.
Honestly, besides yourself and Mrs. Henderson, whom do you know
who takes the Art of poetry seriously? As seriously that is as a painter
takes painting? Who Cares? Who cares whether or no a thing is really
well done? Who in America believes in perfection and that nothing short
of it is worth while? Who would rather quit once and for all than go on
turning out shams? Who will stand for a level of criticism even when it
throws out most of their own work?
I know there are a lovely lot who want to express their own person-
alities, I have never doubted it for an instant. Only they mostly won't take
the trouble to find out what is their own personality.
What, what honestly, would you say to the workmanship of U.S. verse
if you found it in a picture exhibit ? ? ? ? ? ?
I want to know, we've got to get acquainted somehow. I don't think I
underestimate the difficulty of your position.
I think so far as possible you and Mrs. Henderson should do all the
prose that is done at your end. Unless you find someone with special
knowledge on some special topic. The editorial staff ought by now to be
assuming a * tone,' a more or less uniform tenor — with an occasional pro-
test from without, if without dares to dispute with us.
Oh well. Honestly, 'They,' the American brood, have ears like ele-
phants and no sense of the English language. And as for Amur'k'n, Geo.
H. Lorimer and Geo. Ade speak it better than they do. To say nothing of
the G-lorious O. Henry deceased. And I think you are doing very well
with them.
Bynner is at least aware of life as apart from brochures. Yet he himself
is most aptly described in just that ultimate term 'brochure.' And his tone
of thought smacks of the pretty optimism of McClure and E. W. Wilcox.
If America should bring forth a real pessimist — not a literary pessimist — I
should almost believe.
14: To Harriet Monroe
London, March
Dear H.M.: Sorry I can't work this review 1 down to any smaller dimen-
sions ! However, it can't be helped. Yes it can. I've done the job better than
I thought I could. And it's our second scoop, for I only found the man by
1 His review of Robert Frost's A Boys Will, Poetry (Chicago), May 191 3.
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accident and I think I've about the only copy of the book that has left the
shop.
FU have along some of his work, if the book hasn't used up all the best
of it. Anyhow, we'll have some of him in a month or so.
I think we should print this notice at once as we ought to be first and
some of the reviewers here are sure to make fuss enough to get quoted in
N.Y.
The Current Gossip (God what a sheet!!!!) seems to have taken
Tagore hook and all. Current Opinion (March number). However, it serves
as illustration of what I said a while back. These fools don't know any-
thing and at the bottom of their wormy souls they know they don't and
their name is legion and if once they learn that we do know and that we are
'in' first, they'll come to us to get all their thinking done for them and in
the end the greasy vulgus will be directed by us. And we will be able to do
a deal more for poetry indirectly than we could with just our $5,000 per
annum.
And for that reason we can and must be strict and infallible and the
more enemies we make, up to a certain number, the better, for there is
nothing reviewers like better than calling each other liars. The thing is to
herd the worst fools into the opposition at the start and then the rest can
occupy their combative impulses in slaying them.
15: To Harriet Monroe
London^ March
Dear H.M.: I hear that the International is going to start on Vildrac and
Romains. If they haven't printed their stuff (mere translations and pro-
bably bad), I think it our sacred duty to forestall them by printing that
D ! !d rigamarole of C.V.'s at once.
Oh, oh, oh, this vulgar haste for journalistic priority, and from sancti-
fied me ! ! ! at that. However we've got to be it, first in the hearts of our
countrymen, etc.
Frost seems to have put his best stuff into his book, but we'll have
something from him as soon as he has done it, 'advanced' or whatever you
call it. Lawrence has brought out a vol. He is clever; I don't know whether
to send in a review or not. We seem pretty well stuffed up with matter at
the moment. (D. H. Lawrence, whom I mentioned in my note on the
Georgian Anthology.) Detestable person but needs watching. I think he
learned the proper treatment of modern subjects before I did. That was in
5*
1913— aetat 27
some poems in The Eng. Rev.; can't tell whether he hjs progressed or
retrograded as I haven't seen the book yet. He may have published merely
on his prose rep.
P.S. Who the deuce is Elsa Barker? Says she has 5600 lines in her last
vol., which sounds suspicious. Otherwise, personally agreeable with a
Christian Science voice.
16: To Harriet Monroe
London, 30 March
Dear Miss Monroe: I'm deluded enough to think there is a rhythmic
system in the d stuff, and I believe I was careful to type it as I wanted
it written, i.e., as to line ends and breaking and capitals. Certainly I want
the line you give, written just as it is.
Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova.
In the ' Metro' hokku, I was careful, I think, to indicate spaces between the
rhythmic units, and I want them observed.
Re the enclosed sheet from your letter. 1 It never occurred to me that
passage (A.) would shock anyone. If you want to take the responsibility
for replacing it with asterisks, go ahead.
Personally I think it would weaken it to say ' Speak well of John Wana-
maker who pays his shop-girls 5 dollars per week, and of others who do
the same.' Child labour needs a villanelle all to itself.
Passage (B.) honi soit ! Surely the second line might refer to the chastest
joys of paradise. Has our good nation read the Song of Songs? No, really,
I think this ought to stay. The tragedy as I see it is the tragedy of finer
1 Miss Monroe had objected to the following passages:
A. Speak well of amateur harlots ,
Speak well of disguised procurers.
Speak well of shop-walkers.
Speak well of employers of women.
(from 'Reflection and Advice')
B. Go to those who have delicate lusts
Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted.
(from 'Commission')
C. how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together.
(from ' Commission ')
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desire drawn, merely by being desire at all, into the grasp of the grosser
animalities. G — d! you can't emasculate literature utterly. You can't
expect modern work to even look in the direction of Greek drama until we
can again treat actual things in a simple and direct manner.
Morte di Cristo! Read the prefaces to Shelley written just after his
death, where the editor is trying to decide whether Shelley's work is of
sufficient importance to make up for his terrible atheism ! ! !
As to passage (C): A poem is supposed to present the truth of passion,
not the casuistical decision of a committee of philosophers. I expect some
time to do a hymn in praise of 'race' or 'breed,' but here I want to say
exactly what I do say. We've had too much of this patriarchal sentimen-
tality. Family affection is occasionally beautiful. Only people are much too
much in the habit of taking it for granted that it is always so.
In my opinion (B.) and (C.) ought to stand. (A.) I don't care
about. — / — /
The 'Pact' and the 'Epilogue' could go. I should certainly substitute
the enclosed 'Salutation' for the 'Epilogue,' and for the Whitman if there
isn't room for both.
I can't remember quite what I've sent you and what I haven't, but I
won't trouble you now with other alternative pieces.
I shall send you two or three pages of very short poems later, if you
survive the April number. I'm aiming the new volume for about the
Autumn.
Again to your note: ' Risqu£.' Now really ! ! ! Do you apply that term to
all nude statuary? I admit the verse 'To Another Man on his Wife' might
deserve it, but you're not including that. Surely you don't regard the
Elizabethans as 'risquS'? It's a charming word but I don't feel that I've
quite qualified.
As to getting out a number that will please me; I diink it is a possible
feat, tho' I'd probably have to choose the contents myself. When you do
finally adopt my scale of criticism you will, yes, you actually will find a
handful of very select readers who will be quite delighted, and the aegrum
and tiercely accursed groveling vulgus will be too scared by the array of
delightees to utter more than a very faint moan of protest.
I want the files of this periodical to be prized and vendible in 1999.
Quixotic of me ! and very impractical?
The good Hessler once assured the seminar that it might as well agree
with me in the first place because it was bound to do so in the end out of
sheer exhaustion. You may pay my respects to the U.S.A. at large and
assure them that this truth is of even wider application. Or Veritas pare-
valebit as I should have said some centuries ago.
54
1913— aetat 27
I do hope you'll print my instructions to neophytes 1 (sent to A.C.H.)
soon. That will enable our contributors to solve some of their troubles at
home.
Oh well, enough of this, if I'm to catch the swiftest boat.
17: To Harriet Monroe
Sirmione, 22 April
Dear H.M.: God knows / didn't ask for the job of correcting Tagore. He
asked me to. Also it will be very difficult for his defenders in London if he
takes to printing anything except his best work. As a religious teacher he is
superfluous. We've got Lao Tse. And his (Tagore's) philosophy hasn't
much in it for a man who has 'felt the pangs' or been pestered with
Western civilization. I don't mean quite that, but he isn't either Villon or
Leopardi, and the modern demands just a dash of their insight. So long as
he sticks to poetry he can be defended on stylistic grounds against those
who disagree with his content. And there's no use his repeating the Vedas
and other stuff that has been translated. In his original Bengali he has the
novelty of rime and rhythm and of expression, but in a prose translation it
is just 'more theosophy.' Of course if he wants to set a lower level than
diat which I am trying to set in my translations from Kabir, I can't help it.
It's his own affair.
Rec'd £28, with thanks, salaams etc.
Dell is very consoling. It's clever of him to detect the Latin tone. 2
I don't doubt that the diings Frost sent you were very bad. But he has
done good things and whoever rejected 'em will go to hell along with
Harper's and The Atlantic. After my declaration of his glory he'll have to
stay out of print for a year in order not to 'disappoint' the avid reader.
Sdrieusement, I'll pick out whatever of his inedited stuff is fit to print —
when I get back to London. — / — /
1 'A Few Don'ts by an Imagist,' Poetry (Chicago), March 19 13. Vide 'A Stray
Document,' Make It New.
2 The reference is to the epigrams in ' Contemporania. ' Floyd Dell had written
of them in the Chicago Evening Post, 1 1 April 191 3.
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iS: To Isabel W. Pound
Venice j May
Dear Mother: Your remarks on Mow diet and sedentary life' are ludi-
crously inappropriate — if that's any comfort to you. As to the cup of joy I
dare say I do as well as most in face of the spectacle of human imbecility.
As to practicality. I should think with the two specimens you hold up
to me, you'd be about through with your moralization on that subject.
Surely the elder generation (A.F. and T.C.P.) attended to this world's
commerce with a certain assiduity, and camped not in the fields of the
muses.
I don't suppose America has more fools per acre than other countries,
still your programme of the Ethical Society presents no new argument for
my return.
All Venice went to a rather interesting concert at 'La Fenice' on Wed-
nesday; and I also, thanks to Signora Brass, for the entrance is mostly by
invitation.
I don't know whether you remember the very beautiful 18th century
theatre, but it's a place where you might meet anyone from Goethe to
Rossini.
I enclose what I believe to be a Donatello madonna and an interior
which I don't think you saw. At least I wasn't with you if you did see it.
I can't be bothered to read a novel in 54 vols. Besides I know the man
who translated Jean Christophe, and moreover it's a popular craze so I
suppose something must be wrong with it.
Have you tried Butler? Way of All Flesh and his Diary (I think that's
what they call it).
I shall go to Munich next week and thence to London.
P.S. The Doolittles are here, p£re et mire. Also Hilda and Richard.
19: To Harriet Monroe
London, May
Dear H.M.: I've been so fortunate as to get some prose from Hueffer. It is
in a way excerpts from a longer essay and even so it is really too long* but
he is willing to let us have it as it stands and count it as twelve (or ten, we
ought to call it 12) pages. 1 1 think we ought even to print a few pages extra
1 'Impressionism,' Poetry (Chicago), September 1913.
5<5
1913— aetat 27 *
rather than cut it much, as it will be a considerable boost to our prose dept.
Have just sent it to typist by special messenger. Hope it will come in
time for Aug. as I'd rather have it there than with my lot of stuff in Sept.
However that must be as it may. It can't go in later than Sept. as it is going
into a book here. The thing will be all the prose in the number except the
very brief notices. But it will be the best prose we've had or are likely to get.
Clear the decks for it, s.v.p.
20: To Homer L. Pound
London, 3 June
Dear Dad: Thanks for your cheerful letter. If there is any joy in having
found one's 'maximum utility,' 1 should think you might have it, with
your asylum for the protection of the unfortunate. As for T.C., it is rather
fine to see the old bird still holding out, still thinking he'll do something,
and that he has some shreds of influence.
I'll try to get you a copy of Frost. I'm using mine at present to boom
him and get his name stuck about. He has done a ' Death of the Farm
Hand' since the book that is to my mind better than anything in it. I shall
have that in the Smart Set or in Poetry before long.
Whitman is a hard nutt. The Leaves of Grass is the book. It is impos-
sible to read it without swearing at the author almost continuously. Begin
on the 'Songs of Parting' — perhaps on the last one which is called 'So
Long ! ', that has I suppose nearly all of him in it.
We had a terribly literary dinner on Saturday. Tagore, his son and
daughter-in-law, Hewlett, May Sinclair, Prothero (edt. Quarterly Rev.),
Evelyn Underhill (author of divers fat books on mysticism), D. and
myself.
Tagore and Hewlett in combination are mildly amusing. (I believe
Hewlett's Lore of Persephone is good, but haven't yet seen it.)
Tagore lectured very finely last night. I enclose a note from Koli Mohon
Ghose, who has been translating Kabir with me. The translation comes out
in the Calcutta Modern Rev. this month.
Prothero is doing my article on troubadours in the Quarterly, as I think
I wrote.
Am finishing the Patria Mia, book, for Seymour and doing a tale of
Bertrans de Born.
Hope Aug. Poetry will have some stuff by a chap named Cann^H whom
I rooted up in Paris, a Philadelphian.
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W. R<ummel> is playing at Mrs. Fowler's Friday, before his pub.
concert.
W. G. Lawrence down from Oxford yesterday. Good fellow, going out
to India next winter.
Am playing tennis with Hueffer in the afternoons.
I'm promised that 1 shall meet De Gourmont and Anatole France,
intime, next time I go to Paris; that also pleases me.
'Ortus' means 'birth* or 'springing out* — same root in 'orient.'
'Strachey' is actually the edtr. of The Spectator ', but I use him as the type
of male prude, somewhere between Tony Comstock and Hen. Van Dyke.
Even in America we've nothing that conveys his exact shade of meaning.
I've adopted the classic Latin manner in mentioning people by name.
Love to you and mother. Salutations to the entourage. Cheer up, ye
ain't dead yet. And as Tourgeneff says, most everything else is curable.
21 : To Harriet Monroe
London^ 13 August
Dear H.M.: Right-O. I am eased in my mind about the Hueffer matter.
If, yes it's jolly well if, the poets would send in that sort of stuff. F.M.H.
happens to be a serious artist. The unspeakable vulgo will I suppose hear
of him after our deaths. In the meantime they whore after their Bennetts
and their Galsworthys and their unspeakable canaille. He and Yeats are the
two men in London. And Yeats is already a sort of great dim figure with
its associations set in the past.
I'm sending you our left wing, The Freewoman. I've taken charge of the
literature dept. It will be convenient for things whereof one wants the
Eng. copyright held. I pay a dmd. low rate, but it might be worth while as
a supplement to some of your darlings. So far Johns and Kilmer are about
the only ones I care to welcome.
Orage says he has written you giving grounds for declining to ex-
change. I can do nothing more. Am beginning a series of articles in The
New Age next week, on ' The Approach to Paris.'
Will tell The Freewoman to exchange. They will.
Miss Lowell is back from Paris, and pleasingly intelligent.
Yours, after a morning of trying to write prose. Disjecta membra.
J8
1913— aetat 27
22: To Harriet Monroe
London, 13 August
Dear H.M.: Here is the Fletcher. I'd like to use the full sequence. I sup-
pose that's hopeless to suggest.
Of course my Lustra lose by being chopped into sections and I suppose
J.G.F. will have to suffer in like manner. Anyhow, do hack out ten or a
dozen pages in some way that will establish the tone and in some way
present the personality, the force behind this new and amazing state of
affairs.
Am sending the review of him and the Frost poem shortly.
Of course one of Fletcher's strongest claims to attention is his ability to
make a book, as opposed to the common or garden faculty of making a
'Poem,' and if you don't print a fairish big gob of him, you don't do him
justice or stir up the reader's ire and attention.
23: To Harriet Monroe
London, 23 September
Dear H.M.: Lawrence, as you know, gives me no particular pleasure.
Nevertheless we are lucky to get him. Hueffer, as you know, thinks highly
of him. I recognise certain qualities of his work. If I were an editor I should
probably accept his work without reading it. As a prose writer I grant him
first place among the younger men.
I want you to use a bunch of Fletcher's things before you use Lawrence.
In fact I send these things along only on the supposition that they won't
delay Fletcher's appearance. I should be glad however, if you would
choose what you want, at once, and return the rest. Lawrence ought to
have five or six pages. Fletcher ditto or more.
Upward is a very interesting chap. He says, by the way, that the Chinese
stuff is not a paraphrase, but that he made it up out of his head, using a
certain amount of Chinese reminiscence. I think we should insert a note to
that effect, as the one in the current number is misleading.
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24: To Harriet Monroe
London (? September)
Dear Miss Monroe: Heaven knows this is the briefest and hastiest of sum-
maries. And the facts — are old enough.
Yet you are dead right when you say that American knowledge of
French stops with Hugo. And — dieu le sait — there are few enough people
on this stupid little island who know anything beyond Verlaine and
Baudelaire — neither of whom is the least use, pedagogically, I mean.
They beget imitation and one can learn nothing from them. Whereas
Gautier and de Gourmont carry forward the art itself, and the only way
one can imitate them is by making more profound your knowledge of the
very marrow of art.
There's no use in a strong impulse if it is all or nearly all lost in bungling
transmission and technique. This obnoxious word that I'm always bran-
dishing about means nothing but a transmission of the impulse intact. It
means that you not only get the thing off your own chest, but that you get
it into some one else's. Yrs. ever pedagogically.
25: To Alice Corbin Henderson
London, October
Dear Mrs. Henderson: I wonder if Miss Monroe can get my memento into
the 'notes and announcements' section — right away. I know the Mercure
is held as old-fashioned but Duhamel's notes would be very good for
Sterling and various others if they could be got to read 'em. The sooner
we get this intercommunication working, the better.
Postscript, varii:
Dear Mrs. Henderson: I don't see where we're to find space for that
prose of Cournos', but it is his own and is at least direct treatment of life.
And he is a good chap who has risked physical comfort for the good of his
soul in leaving a steady job.
Frances Gregg has done a permissible poem. I've told her to send it
direct with whatever else she thinks decent.
I wonder if Poetry really dares to devote a number to my new work.
There'll be a howl. They won't like it. It's absolutely the last obsequies of
the Victorian period. I won't permit any selection or editing. It stands now
a series of 24 poems, most of them very short.
60
1913— aetat 28
I'd rather they appeared after H.M. has published 'The Garden' and
whatever else of that little lot she cares to print, as a sort of preparation for
the oncoming horror. There'll probably be 40 by the time I hear from you.
It's not futurism and it's not post-impressionism, but it's work contem-
porary with those schools and to my mind the most significant that I have
yet brought off.
Butt they won't like it. They won't object as much as they did to Whit-
man's outrages, because the stamina of stupidity is weaker. I guarantee you
one thing. The reader will not be bored. He will say ahg, ahg, ahh, ahhh,
but-bu-bu-but this isn't Poetry.
Six years ago, there wasn't an editor in the U.S. who would print so
staid and classic a work as 'La Fraisne.'
This series of poems is PREposterous. I refer you to the article 'The
Open Door' in the Nov. number.
I expect a number of people will regard the series as pure blague. Still, I
give you your chance to be modern, to go blindfoldedly to be modern, to
produce as many green bilious attacks throughout the length and breadth
of the U.S.A. as there are fungoid members of the American academy. I
announce the demise of R. U. Johnson and all his foetid generation.
16: To Amy Lowell
London (? November)
Dear Miss Lowell: I'd like to use your 'In a Garden' in a brief anthology
Des Imagistes that I am cogitating — unless you've something that you
think more appropriate.
As to the enclosed: J.G. apparently did go walking, but it don't seem to
have taken him long.
Most of my intervening activities will be conveyed to you in print.
The gods attend you.
27: To Harriet Monroe
London, 7 November
Dear H.M.: Re your letter of Oct. 13th etc. There is no earthly reason
why Poetry shouldn't ' reach England.' 'England' is dead as mutton. If
Chicago (or the U.S.A. or whatever) will slough off its provincialism, if it
will begin to be aware of Paris (or of anyjother centre save London), if it
will feed on all fruit, and produce strength fostered on alert digestion-—
61
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there's no reason for Chicago or Poetry or whatever not being the stan-
dard.
We've a better list of contributors than any English magazine of poetry
(which ain't saying much — but still ).
There's a very decent notice of us in La Vie des Lettres.
Until 'we' accept what I've been insisting on for a decade, i.e., a univer-
sal standard which pays no attention to time or country — a Weltlitteratur
standard — there is no hope. And England hasn't yet accepted such a stan-
dard, so we've plenty of chance to do it first.
I'm trying to say as much in The Quarterly Review, but heaven knows
if I'll succeed. (They've printed my 'Troubadours.')
I'm asking Hueffer for more prose, you seemed to like it.
About the change of format. Unless you can go on being subsidized
after the end of the 5 years, I think one must seriously consider it. I don't
want a great wodge of prose, but about double what we have at present.
Again and again and again. The gods do not care about lines of political
geography. If there are poets in the U.S.??? Anyhow, they oughtn't to be
poisoned in infancy by being fed parochial standards.
Gald6s, Flaubert, Tourgenev, see them all in a death struggle with pro-
vincial stupidity (or Jammes in ' La Triomphe de la Vie '). All countries are
equally damned, and all great art is born of the metropolis (or in the metro-
polis). The metropolis is that which accepts all gifts and all heights of
excellence, usually the excellence that is tabu in its own village. The metro-
polis is always accused by the peasant of ' being mad after foreign notions.'
By the way The Glebe is to do our Imagiste anthology. There'll be
various reprints from Poetry.
Re the rest: All I want is that the 'American artist' presuming that he
exist shall use not merely London, but Paris, London, Prague or wherever,
as a pace-maker. And that he cease to call him champion for having done
100 yds. in 14 seconds merely because there's no one around to beat him
(world's record being presumably 9 85/100).
28: To Isabel W. Pound
London, November
Dear Mother: I plan to spend my birthday largesse in the purchase of four
luxurious undershirts. Or rather I had planned so to do; if, however, the
bloody guardsman who borrowed my luxurious hat from the Cabaret
cloak room {not by accident) does not return the same, I shall probably
divert certain shekels from the yeagen
62
1913— aetat 28
Upward's Divine Mystery is just out, Garden City Press, Letchworth.
His The New Word has been out some time; the library may have the
anonymous edtn.
My stay in Stone Cottage will not be in the least profitable. I detest the
country. Yeats will amuse me part of the time and bore me to death with
psychical research the rest. I regard the visit as a duty to posterity.
Current Opinion is an awful sheet. Merely the cheapest rehash of the
cheapest journalistic opinion, ma chef No periodical is ever much good.
Am sending the Quarterly which is at least respectable. I hope you don't
think I read the periodicals I appear in.
I am fully aware of The New Age's limitations. Still the editor is a good
fellow — his literary taste is unfortunate. Most of the paper's
bad manners, etc. . . .
I seem to spend most of my time attending to other people's affairs,
weaning young poetettes from obscurity into the glowing pages of divers
rotten publications, etc. Besieging the Home Office to let that ass Kemp
stay in the country for his own good if not for its. Conducting a literary
kindergarten for the aspiring, etc., etc.
Richard and Hilda were decently married last week, or the week before,
as you have doubtless been notified. Brigit Patmore is very ill but they
have decided to let her live, which is a mercy as there are none too many
charming people on the planet.
Met Lady Low in Bond St. Friday, 'returned from the jaws of death,'
just back.
The Old Spanish Masters show is the best loan exhibit I have yet seen.
The post-Impressionist show is also interesting.
Epstein is a great sculptor. I wish he would wash, but I believe Michel
Angelo never did, so I suppose it is part of the tradition. Also it is nearly
impossible to appear clean in London; perhaps he does remove some of
the grime.
Anyhow it is settled that you come over in the Spring. If dad can't
come then, we'll try to arrange that for the year after. I shall come back
here from Sussex (mail address will be here all the time, as I shall be up
each Monday). You will come over in April; at least you will plan to be
here for May and June. Once here you can hang out at Duchess St. quite
as cheaply as you could at home.
I shall go to a Welsh lake later in the season instead of going to Garda in
the Spring. Having been in the country thru' the winter I shall probably
not need spring cleaning.
If I am to get anything done this day, I must be off and at it.
Love to you and dad.
«3
London
29: To Amy Lowell
Coleman! *s Hatch, 26 November
Dear Miss Lowell: I agree with you that 'binding* is better than 'a-
binding' and that 'Harriet' is a bloody fool. Also I've resigned from
Poetry in Hueffer's favour, but I believe he has resigned in mine and I
don't yet know whether Fm shed of the bloomin' paper or not.
I'm deaved to death with multifarious affairs. I think Duhamel on
schools was amusing but more needed in Paris than here, where yr. humbl.
svt. is the only person with guts enough to turn a proselyte into a disciple.
W.B.Y. and I are very placid in the country.
Do send on yr. poemae. Perhaps I can pick some paragraphs out of the
Duhamel when I get a breathing space. Will use some of the last batch,
prose also — with a substitution of 'paragraphs' for 'pages.' If there are
translations you might mark what from. Or if your own you might say
so.
30: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman s Hatch, 8 December
Dear H.M.: All right, but I do not see that there was anything for me to
have done save resign at the time I did so. I don't think you have yet tried
to see the magazine from my viewpoint.
I don't mind the award as it seems to be Yeats who makes it, or at least
'suggests/ and as you have my own contrary suggestion for the disposal
of the money made before I knew Lindsay had been otherwise provided
for.
For the rest, if I stay on the magazine it has got to improve. It's all very
well for Yeats to be ceremonious in writing to you, a stranger, and in a
semi-public letter. Nobody holds him responsible for the rot that goes into
the paper.
I am willing to reconsider my resignation pending a general improve-
ment of the magazine, and I will not have my name associated with it un-
ess it does improve.
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1913— aetat 28
31: To William Carlos Williams
Coleman s Hatch, 19 December
Deer Bull: Thanks for your good letter. Almost you make me think for a
moment that I might come to America. Dolce nido, etc. There are still a
half dozen people there.
I suppose you've seen Demuth about The Glebe —if not take my intro-
duction to Alfred Kreymborg . They ought to do yr. book.
They're doing the anthology.
I am very placid and happy and busy. Dorothy is learning Chinese. I've
all old Fenollosa's treasures in mss.
Have just bought two statuettes from the coming sculptor, Gaudier-
Brzeska. I like him very much. He is the only person with whom I can
really be 'Altaforte.' Cournos I like also. We are getting our little gang
after five years of waiting. You must come over and get the air — if only
for a week or so in the spring.
Richard is now running the N(ew) F(reewoman) which is now to
appear as The Egoist. You must subscribe as the paper is poor, i.e. weak
financially. The Mercure de France has taken to quoting us, however. It is
the best way to keep in touch.
I wish Gwen could study with Brzeska.
Yeats is much finer intime than seen spasmodically in the midst of the
whirl. We are both, I think, very contented in Sussex. He returned $200
of that award with orders that it be sent to me — and it has been. Hence the
sculptural outburst and a new typewriter of great delicacy.
About your 'La Flor': it is good. It is gracious also, but that is aside the
point for the moment. Your vocabulary in it is right. Your syntax still
strays occasionally from the simple order of natural speech.
I think I shall print 'La Flor' in The Egoist.
I think 'gracious* is the word I should apply to it also as a critic. It is
dignified. It has the air of Urbino. I don't know about your coming over.
I still think as always that in the end your work will hold. After all you
have the rest of a lifetime. Thirty real pages are enough for any of us to
leave. There is scarce more of Catullus or Villon.
You may get something slogging away by yourself that you would miss
in The Vortex — and that we miss. It would be shorter perhaps if one of us
would risk an Atlantic passage.
Of course Gwen ought to come over. I haven't heard from her for long,
and from V. only a newspaper cutting.
E 65
London
Damn ! Why haven't I a respectable villa of great extent and many
retainers?
Dondo has turned up again after years of exile. He is in Paris, has met
De Gourmont. We printed a page of his stuff, verse, in The N.F. last
week. I think he will do somediing.
If you haven't had that paper, send for back numbers since Aug. 15 th.
Cournos has just come in. Shall mail this at once.
32: To Isabel W. Pound
Slowgk {more or less), 24 December
Dear Mother: Am down here for a week with the Hueffers in a dingy old
cottage that belonged to Milton. F.M.H. and I being the two people who
couldn't be in the least impressed by the fact, makes it a bit more ironical.
I can't remember much of what has been going on. Tea with your Mrs.
Wards in the Temple on Sunday.
Yeats reading to me up till late Sat. evening, etc.
Richard gone to Italy.
Dined with Hewlett sometime or other last week.
Have written about 20 new poems.
3 days later:
Impossible to get any writing done here. Atmosphere too literary.
3 ' Kreators' all in one ancient cottage is a. bit thick.
Xmas passed without calamity.
Have sloshed about a bit in the slush as the weather is pleasingly warm.
Walked to the Thames yesterday.
Play chess and discuss style with F.M.H.
Am not convinced that rural life suits me, at least in winter.
Love to you and dad. Greetings of the season to Aunt Frank.
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1914
33.' To Amy Lowell
Coleman 9 s Hatch, & January
Dear Miss Lowell: No, of course I'm not outraged or enraged or en-
wrothed — only there's no use my trying to keep up correspondences.
I expected your stuff to have appeared (Poems) in The Egoist on Jan
ist, but I have given up direct control and so now I find they won't be in
until Feb. i or 1 5. They're all going in, I believe.
The cerebralist hasn't come off, so don't bother with it.
Yes, I resigned from Poetry in accumulated disgust, and they axed me
back. And I consented to return 'on condition of general improvement of
the magazine' — which won't happen — so I shall be compelled to resign
permanently sometime or other.
For instance C. Y. Rice in the Dec. number. Can? I? go on leaving my
name on a paper so that it misleads some guileless Frenchman to believe
that that is a ' des meilleurs pontes anglais ' ? ? ? ?
I think J.G.F.'s in same no. shows up very well.
The trouble with yr. prose was that the Mercure reserves 'translation
rights' and it couldn't have gone in without^/raccw.
I don't however believe that there's much use your sending in French
clippings. The new staff is so much nearer Paris. And ergo. . . . However, I
think we'd like a brief essay on 'America the lost continent,' 'The Barren
West,' 'The gt. occidental desert.'
Until you come over again and make some sort of arrangement, I don't
believe there's much use in your bothering.
Yeats sails on the 29th. I don't know his Boston date but I have im-
pressed you on his mind fiom time to time. Do you want him 'to dine'
only, or ' to stop' ? — / — /
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34: To Isabel W. Pound
Coleman s Hatch, January
Dear Mother: It is rather late in the day to go into the whole question of
realism in art. I am profoundly pained to hear that you prefer Marie
Corelli to Stendhal, but I can not help it.
As for Tagore, you may comfort yourself with the reflection that it was
Tagore who poked my 'Contemporania' down the Chicago gullet. Or at
least read it aloud to that board of imbeciles on Poetry and told 'em how
good the stuff was.
I do not wish to be mayor of Cincinnati nor of Dayton, Ohio. I do very
well where I am. London may not be the Paradiso Terrestre, but it is at
least some centuries nearer it than is St. Louis.
I believe Sussex agrees with me quite nicely.
35: To Harriet Monroe
London, 20 January
— / — / Postscript: As for your recent number, I would protest against
the substitution of 'BeP for 'Christ* in Mr. Aldington's 'Lesbia.' 1 Mr.
Aldington is sufficiently devout but there is no need to pretend that every-
one subscribes to a bastard faith devised for the purpose of making good
Roman citizens, or slaves, and which is thoroughly different from that
originally preached in Palestine. In this sense Christ is thoroughly dead.
If one is trying to express the passing of die gods, in poetry that expression
is distinctly weakened by the omission of the one god or demi-god who is
still popularly accepted.
A hundred years ago the cast of the Venus de Medici at the Philadelphia
Academy of Fine Arts was kept in a carefully closed cupboard and shown
only to those 'who especially desired to see it.' There was one day per
week reserved for ladies.
If Mr. Aldington believes more in Delphos than in Nazareth, I can see
no reason for misrepresenting his creed. For centuries our verse has
1 The lines originally read
AndPicus ofMirandola is dead;
And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of
Hermes and Thoth and Christ are rotten now,
Rotten and dank.
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1 9 14— aetat 28
referred to 'The False Mahound' and thereby done violence to the feelings
of the countless faithful who alone maintain an uninterrupted prayer to
their prophet.
Mr. Allen Upward, whom you have printed to your honour, was, as
proconsul in Nigeria, always careful to explain to the natives that
Christianity was not the universal religion of England and that there were
many who looked upon it as a degrading superstition. I know that he per-
formed at least one 'miracle' by means of a gnostic gem, and reconverted
at least one Mohammedan.
36: To Harriet Monroe
London, 3 1 January
Dear H.M.: Here is the Japanese play for April. 1 It will give us some
reason for existing. I send it in place of my own stuff, and as my name is in
such opprobrium we will not mention who did the extracting. Anyhow
Fenollosa's name is enough.
These plays are in Japanese, part in verse, part in prose. Also I have
written the stuff as prose where the feet are rather uniform. It will save
space and keep the thing from filling too much of the number.
There's a long article with another play to appear in The Quarterly. This
Nishikigi is too beautiful to be encumbered with notes and long explana-
tion. Besides I think it is now quite lucid — my landlady and grocer both
say the story is clear anyhow. Fenollosa, as you probably know, is dead. I
happen to be acting as literary executor, but no one need know that yet
awhile.
I think you will agree with me that this Japanese find is about the best
bit of luck we've had since the starting of the magazine. I don't put the
work under the general category of translation either. It could scarcely
have come before now. The earlier attempts to do Japanese in English are
dull and ludicrous. That you needn't mention either as the poor scholars
have done their bungling best. One can not commend the results. The
best plan is to say nothing about it. This present stuff ranks as re-creation.
You'll find W.B.Y. also very keen on it.
1 Nishikigi, printed May 19 14.
69
London
37: To Amy Lowell
London, 2 February
Dear Miss Lowell: Yeats sailed Saturday, with your name and address
carefuly glued into his address-book.
I suppose The Egoist will run another six months. I don't think an
American correspondent would save it; you can no more interest London
in the state of the American mind than you could interest Boston in the
culture of Dawson or Butte, Montana.
Your note would be O.K. in Boston, but here I don't think it more than
echoes the general opinion of every expatriate that any inhabitant has met.
You refer to things like Schauffler which no one has heard of. It could
well appear in Poetry where it would cause a little salutary irritation. Here
it would merely be lost. I think The Egoist might well use something
solider and more 'reaching.'
Yes, I thought Fletcher came up very well in Poetry.
Etc. Interruptions
May as well send this before it gets mislaid.
38: To Amy Lowell
London, 23 February
Dear Miss Lowell: It is too late to monkey with the Anthology.
Do you want to edit The Egoist} Present editrix writes me this A.M.
that she is willing to quit. (This is in confidence.) Of course there is a
string to it. The paper made enough in the first six months to pay for the
next three. It is assured up to June. That is, I think, fairly good when one
considers what it usually takes to get a paper started. I think they have
been timid. I think it would have paid better to pay an occasional 'selling'
contributor than to trust too much to voluntary work. With any sort of
business management the thing ought to pay its expenses, or at least to
cost so little that it would be worth the fun. A clever manager could make
it a property (perhaps).
If the idea amuses you, you should make arrangements for American
distribution before you come over.
At present the paper is printed at Southport. An editress and editorial
secretary are paid, also useless office rent in London. Richard could per-
fectly well do all that for another ten dollars a month. I don't know how
70
1914— aetat 28
many subscriptions your name is good for in Boston. We've had posters
well about, and the sales increase, very slowly, but still the thing is creep-
ing on.
If you want that sort of lark you could at least have a run for your
money.
If the damn thing took to buying contributions and possibly to selling
in the U.S.A. at 5 cents a copy (doubtful????? about this) it might be
made solid. Of course one would fire Carter and Ricketts and the sex
problem.
If the thing were run seriously, I would, I think, get almost any-
one to write for half-rate for a while at least. There would be a certain
amount of creative work. And also a column of fortnightly information
for the provincial reader, for it is useless to try to circulate a paper that
implies that all its readers live in London and know everything that's
on.
The Spectator and New Age etc. pretend to supply a 'complete cul-
ture* to every reader. It is a bore to the office, but I think it essential to
sales.
People who solidly subscribe to a paper year after year must feel that
they don't need to subscribe to any other.
Anyhow. That it is.
39: To Amy Lowell
London^ 11 March
Dear Miss Lowell: Thanks for clippings. I don't know anything more
about 'The Fountain.' I handed over the bunch of mss. and told 'em to
print the lot. I don't know at which stage the Fountain leaked; anyhow I
haven't got it, and you are at liberty to use it. Also to reprint anything that
has appeared in The Egoist.
Les Imagistes may get a theatre ('Little' or 'Savoy') chucked at their
heads, the proposed date is May 26, but it isn't yet settled. I'd like you to
appear and read some Fort or Jammes.
July is too late. However the whole thing may be transferred or deferred
till Autumn so I can't feel justified in urging you to change the date of
your departure from Abyssinia.
Yeats was in Chicago, I dare say his mastery of rhythmic simultaneity
isn't yet sufficiently complete to let him 'Chi' and 'Bost' on the same
day.
7i
London
40: To Amy Lowell
London, 18 March
Dear Miss Lowell: Re The Egoist. Of course you won't get
it for nothing unless Miss Marsden can keep her corner or some corner to
let loose in. She has her own clientele who look for her.
About the policy and mistakes, you realize that nothing is paid for (save
the verse sometimes); Aldington and Miss Marsden and a couple of clerks
get a guinea a week. If people are writing for nothing they only do so on
condition that they write as they dammmm please. Also one can't afford
time to write carefully.
I'm responsible for what I get into the paper but I am at present nearly,
oh we might as well say quite, powerless to keep anything out. I don't
think I'd come to Boston save for a salary or guarantees that would equal
the present gross cost of the paper, or at least the ' expenses.'
On the other hand I don't give a hang where the thing is printed or who
runs it. Of course a strong staffis important . . . essential. It won't come for
being whistled for.
You can 'run' a paper in Boston and have a staff here. To wit me and
Hueffer and anybody you've a mind to pay for. — 'Arriet, as you know,
has that recommendation. Only she will try to pick out contributors for
herself which is usually, from the point of view of internationality or
English circulation, fatal. My flair is also at the service of anybody. That
may be a drawback. At least I'm getting jolly tired of pushing other
people's stuff.
I'll send your letter on to Miss Marsden anyhow.
I don't see why you shouldn't live half the year in London. After all it's
the only sane place for any one to live if they've any pretence to letters.
Two days' interruption
Guess there wasn't much more than a signature to add.
I can't answer all of your questions as 1 don't own the paper. All I can
say is that I think you could make it go and that I'll back you if you try it.
I think everything in your letter perfectly sound.
41: To Amy Lowell
London, 23 March
Dear Miss Lowell: The Egoist has just had £250 chucked at its head to do
as it likes with, so I'm afraid there's no chance of your getting it in July to
72
1914— aetat 28
do as you like with. Still I dare say you'll find some way of amusing your-
self when you arrive. I'm not sure a quarterly wouldn't be cheaper and
more effective, and you could edit that from Boston quite easily.
Also a quarterly staff is at hand in Hueffer, Joyce, Lawrence, Flint, and
myself on this side and you and your crowd on the other. I should also
develop some more intimate connection with Vienna and Florence. We
could have whoever we liked for special articles or stories, but I think
Lawrence and Joyce are the two strongest prose writers among les jeunes,
and all the rest are about played out. And we could have anything Yeats
happened to do. And we should, I think, print a reasonable amount of
French, or else reprint a ten to twenty page selection from some French
poet in each number. This would be cheaper than trying new stuff and we
could get the man's whole work before us instead of depending on the
scraps he happened to submit.
The French departments of the U.S. universities, or the Modern
Language Association or the Alliance Franchise ought to back us up in
such an endeavour to promote international understanding. The whole
three of 'em ought to be tackled.
42: To Harriet Monroe
London, 28 March
Dear Miss Monroe: — / — / No, the Fenollosa play can't wait. It won't
do any harm to print it with the Yeats stuff in May. Every number ought
to be at least as * sublimated' as such a number will be. If we can't stay that
good we ought to quit.
The Hueffer can't possibly wait past June. Both he and V(iolet) H(unt>
have done nothing but fuss and plague me about the delay supposedly till
June ever since I got the thing from them, and 'printing it in America is
just like burying it' and he has turned down Monro of Poetry and Drama
when said H.M. tried to buy the thing from him. That was out of friend-
ship for me and because I had insisted on his waiting for English publica-
tion until after we had printed the poem.
It is excessively inconvenient not to get the play done in April.
I have just come back from Blum's, he is giving us a batch of stuff for
July. I dare say he will send back the cheque for it; he seldom or never
accepts payment. And that will either help you out of deficits or give you
another prize for Johns or someone who needs it.
The Blunt stuff, glory of the name etc. ought to build up our position
with the older French reviews and 'solidify' us in other quarters. Besides
73
London
it is good of its kind. And Macmillan is soon to bring out a collected
edition of him.
If I could be sure of even three or four good stiff numbers I might make
some sort of stand for a restart here, or even an English 'publication* of
Poetry \ but the thing flopped so before that there has been no use ' talking
it up/ Of course, circulating a magazine takes energy and a lot of time,
and for a person in my position it is purely impossible unless the magazine
really ' means' what I mean and keeps up the sort of pace I believe in.
Of course, until you do put out something 'that will circulate in
England,' no author of any standing will give, or expect to give, you any-
thing but American serial rights on a poem. However. I've chewed over
that sufficiently.
About the dates I propose for printing, I dare say I seem arbitrary but
I get stuff that no one else (save possibly Hueffer, and in many cases not
even Hueffer) could possibly get you. I do this by use, or abuse as you
like, of the privilege of personal friendship or acquaintance. If added to
that there is to be constant worry about dates of publication etc. delays,
etc. 1 simply can not go on with it, it is too wearing to a set of nerves that
have received few favors from circumstance. These people can't be treated
like novices sending uninvited contributions to Harper's.
Hang it all, the only way to sell a specialized magazine like Poetry is to
pack it full full of good stuff. You sent up the sales with the number con-
taining Yeats and myself a year or more ago. It ought to have kept on
going up at a steady rate. It would do twice as much good to everybody
concerned. Even the rotten poetasters that I object to having in at all
might get as much for one page as they now do for two or three and they'd
get corresponding advance in prestige. How can the bloomin provincial
poet be expected to keep a pace unless we set it? If you'd only have some
faint trace of confidence in the American poet's ability to hit the trail.
If ' the public' once got convinced that you meant business . . . that you
weren't waiting for laggards . . . and trying to run an ambulance corps for
the incapable . . . aihi ai ai ai ! ! ! bopp ! ! !
'Sublimated number' be hanged. I dare say I'm vague and etc. but what
I've been wanting all along is some such standard as that Yeats-Fenollosa
number would be. Print it and don't fall below it. Don't accept till things
hit at least that level, don't promise, leave the files open till the very going
to press on the chance that a really good thing may come in. Then if
nothing does come in use up some of your dead wood.
Precedent: that rotten Poetry and Drama y established itself solely by
Flint's French number which everybody had to get; it was the first large
article on contemporary stuff.
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1 9 14— ae tat 28
P.S. Hang it all, I wrote something to you or to somebody months and
months ago about that damn Glebe thing.
Of course if you think any of the people I've sent in have the faintest
notion that you think the stuff is your 'absolute property' you are wholly
mistaken. A clever author like Newbolt or Masefield only gives his pub-
lishers ' leave to print.'
No, the Glebe does not get the stuff for nothing. They pay a royalty on
sales the same as any other publisher would. I did not and do not regard
'em as a periodical. The book is issued as a monthly series, but it is issued
bound at the same time as what I suppose to be a separate book. I have
mucked in the filthy matter for the sake of a few young writers who need
money and that oblique means to it, reputation. If the unpunchable God
had any respect for my finer feelings . . .
Anyhow, I've begged the Hueffer and given my own stuff for lower
payment than I should have otherwise received for it, and paid one man an
advance for his poem. Why in hell do I bother? . . .
September is impossible for Hueffer, he has already refused another fine
offer.
For God's sake if you've got a lot of second-rate stuff on hand and
accepted, for god's sake get some one to pay the authors and then return
the stuff to them. It would be better to take the money out of Poetry s own
fund and recoup on sales or go smash if necessary. Anything better than
water down the quality with stuff that ' looks pale beside'. . . .
43: To Harriet Monroe
London, April
Dear H.M.: The author of the enclosed, X X , his wife and
infant are I believe starving or thereabouts. I have helped him and I sup-
pose I should do so still, but I'm 'strapped.' He tried to start a magazine
here on another man's promises and he has got into such a mess that I
don't think anyone else here will do anything for him.
The poor devil had been keeping his poems for his own magazine or I
suppose I should have had them to go over before.
Can you send him a cheque for the poem at once and print it when you
have relieved the present congestion ?
Or does some supporter want to take him on: he has something in him,
enough at least to make him worth keeping on the planet a few months
longer.
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London
The last I had of him was to send him a telegraph order to buy food,
then he disappeared, ashamed to ask for more, and I heard nothing until
his wife found my address among his papers and wrote from Leicester (he
had been in London).
44: To Amy Lowell
Coleman s Hatch, 30 April
Dear Miss Lowell: By all means * Astigmatize' me, tres honor6.
Joyce is the author of that Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man now in
The Egoist, and he is also in the Imagiste book.
We can consider what French stuff is worth using when you come over,
and jaw about possibilities.
Fletcher looking 'real hearty* to my amazement the last time I saw him.
I am on my head with Fenollosa notes and the expectable disturbances
of such a season. — / — /
45: To Harriet Monroe
London, 23 May
Dear H.M.: — / — / Cut out any of my poems that would be likely to get
you suppressed but don't make it into a flabby little Sunday School lot like
the bunch in the November number. Now who could blush at 'Lesbia
Ilia'????????? who???
Anyway I haven't any new things that will mix with the lot I've sent in.
You can leave out the footnote to ' (A Study in) Aesthetics.'
The Hueffer good? Rather! It is the most important poem in the
modern manner. The most important single poem that is.
As for my only liking importations, that's sheer nonsense. Fletcher,
Frost, Williams, H.D., Cann611 and yrs. v.t. are all American. You know
perfectly well that American painting is recognizable because painters
from the very beginning have kept in touch with Europe and dared to
study abroad. Are you going to call people foreigners the minute they care
enough about their art to travel in order to perfect it? Are the only
American poets to be diose who are too lazy to study or travel, or too
cowardly to learn what perfection means ? — / — /
Blunt hasn't sent in his stuff, and I won't stir him up, if you don't much
want him. I don't care about giving people the sort of stuff that they want,
76
1914- aetat 2 8
or using stuff in the old manner. If he remembers on his own account he
will have to go in in my place.
Rodker ought to go in fairly soon, not later than Sept.
As for importations. You know what a man's painting is like when he
has never been out of, say Indiana, and has never seen a good gallery.
And what is there improper in ' The Father* ?
Am I expected to confine myself to a Belasco drawingroom ? Is modern
life, or life of any period, confined to polite and decorous actions or to the
bold deeds of stevedores or the discovery of the Nile and Orinoco by
Teethidorus Dentatus Roosenstein? Are we to satirize only the politer and
Biblical sins? Is art to have no bearing on life whatever? Is it to deal only
with situations recognized and sanctioned by Cowper? Can one pre-
suppose a public which has read at least some of the classics? God damn it
until America has courage enough to read Voltaire it won't be fit for pigs
let alone humans. — / — /
46: To Amy Lowell
London y (? 13) July
Dear Miss Lowell: BLAS T dinner on the 1 5 th as I phoned this P.M.
Upward in yesterday. Will be glad to come to your dinner.
Richard will come to call on you Friday and help you make what pre-
parations and invitations you want. (H.D. will come too, but don't men-
tion it as she is in retreat from all social appearances, feigning indisposi-
tion. This information is private.) If Friday P.M. don't suit you, will you
write and name some other day? He is at no. 8 in this building.
47: To Amy Lowell
London, 1 August
Dear Miss Lowell: It is true that I might give my sanction, or whatever
one wants to call it, to having you and Richard and 'H.D.' bring out an
'Imagiste' anthology, provided it were clearly stated at the front of the
book that 'E.P. etc. dissociated himself, wished success, did not mind use
of title so long as it was made clear that he was not responsible for con-
tents or views of the contributors.' But, on the other hand that would
deprive me of my machinery for gathering stray good poems and pre-
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senting them to the public in more or less permanent form and of dis-
covering new talent — of which the already discovered will be constantly
jealous and contemptuous (especially R.A.), will fuss etc. — or poems
which could not be presented to the public in other ways, poems that
would be lost in magazines. As for example ' H.D.V would have been, for
some years at least.
The present machinery was largely or wholly my making. I ordered
c the public* (i.e. a few hundred people and a few reviewers) to take note of
certain poems.
You offer to find a publisher, that is, a better publisher, if I abrogate my
privileges, if I give way to, or saddle myself with, a dam'd contentious,
probably incompetent committee. If I tacitly, tacitly to say the least of it,
accept a certain number of people as my critical and creative equals, and
publish the acceptance.
I don't see the use. Moreover, I should like the name 'Imagisme* to
retain some sort of a meaning. It stands, or I should like it to stand for hard
light, clear edges. I can not trust any democratized committee to maintain
that standard. Some will be splay-footed and some sentimental.
Neither will I waste time to argue with a committee. I have little enough
time for my own work as it is. And all things converge to leave me all too
little for the part I should like to give to actual creation, rather than to
criticism, journalism etc.
If anyone wants a faction, or if anyone wants to form a separate group,
I think it can be done amicably, but I should think it wiser to split over an
aesthetic principle. In which case the new group would find its name auto-
matically, almost. The aesthetic issue would of itself give names to the two
parties.
Your proposition was not that you would find a publisher and that you
would prefer the stuff to be selected by a committee or by each contri-
butor, but that such an anthology would be published and that I could
come in or go hang. At least that was my impression which may have been
inexact. We may both have rushed at unnecessary conclusions.
48: To Amy Lowell
London^ 12 August
Dear Miss Lowell: I think your idea most excellent, only I think your
annual anthology should be called Vers Libre or something of that sort.
Obviously it will consist in great part of the work of people who have not
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1914— aetat 28
taken the trouble to find out what I mean by 'Imagisme.* I should, as I
have said, like to keep the term associated with a certain clarity and
intensity.
A number of your contributors object to being labelled. Vers libre
seems to be their one common bond. Also if you use such a title (or any-
thing similar) there need be no bothersome explanation of my absence.
I think the annual will be very good for all concerned. I trust I shall not
as you say 'take any one with me'; I have no desire to prevent anyone
else's participation in the project. Also I will refrain from publishing
another anthology in America before 19 16 if you think it likely to clash in
any way with yours. This offer is a little inconvenient as I had written to
that side of the water before you spoke to me of Macmillan. However I
recognize that the Aldingtons prefer Macmillan and I don't want diem to
incur any uncertainty about having their poems published together in
1915.
If you want to drag in the word Imagisme you can use a subtitle 'an
anthology devoted to Imagisme, vers libre and modern movements in
verse' or something of that sort. I think that will be perfectly fair to
everyone.
49: To Douglas Goldring
London, 18 September
Dear Goldring: Those people in Chicago have at last printed two of your
poems. I suppose you'll get paid in a day or so.
I like your 'Loredan' now I see it in print. Though the interjected
'Alice' rhyming with palace, and the last line of 'Hill House' still stick in
my craw.
If you think it worth while to subject some more things to my captious
and atrabilious eye, I should be glad to see another lot of your stuff. I have
no means of guaranteeing that Poetry will print anything under six
month's time, but I will try to hurry them as much as possible.
P.S. I should like to make up 5 or 6 pages of your stuff, but we have so
many points of disagreement that I'll need a large lot to select from if I am
to do so.
79
London
50: To Harriet Monroe
London, 30 September
Dear H.M.: 1. Received with thanks, £ 18/10, receipt enclosed.
2. Enclosed also the first fruits of sin with Masefield. I have answered
to the effect that if they will delay publication until Nov. 1st I will do what
I can for them but the bloody Philip the King is a play not a poem and it is
54 pages long. I send you copy herewith under separate cover. You can
arrange as you like with Reynolds. If they delay, and if it is
impossible to print the whole play, which has no division into acts, there is
one alternative, i.e. that of printing the Messenger's speech and part of an
endless dialogue between Philip and the Infanta. It would be perhaps
simpler to wait until J.M. has something else for us.
So far as the public is concerned it would be better to print the whole
play or nothing. If Heinemann does not delay publication, Reynolds
would probably sell you the play for a few pounds, butt. . . . You could
print the play, and have nothing else in the number, either prose or
verse.
3. 1 was jolly well right about Eliot. He has sent in the best poem I have
yet had or seen from an American. Pray god it be not a single and
unique success. He has taken it back to get it ready for the press and you
shall have it in a few days.
He is the only American I know of who has made what I can call ade-
quate preparation for writing. He has actually trained himself and modern-
ized himself on his own. The rest of the promising young have done one or
the other but never both (most of the swine have done neither). It is such a
comfort to meet a man and not have to tell him to wash his face, wipe his
feet, and remember the date (19 14) on the calendar.
51: To Amy Lowell 1
[postcard]
Congratulations.
Why not include Thomas Hardy?
London, 2 October
1 See Letter No. 56.
80
1914 — aetat 28
52: To H. L. Mencken
London, 3 October
Dear Mr. Mencken: So far I only find novels. All more than 30,000 words.
I enclose a poem by the last intelligent man I've found — a young
American, T. S. Eliot (you can write to him direct, Merton College,
Oxford). I think him worth watching — mind ' not primitive/
His ' (Portrait of a) Lady ' is very nicely drawn.
53: To Harriet Monroe
London, October
Dear H.M.: Here is the Eliot poem. 1 The most interesting contribution
Fve had from an American.
P.S. Hope you'll get it in soon.
54: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 12 October
Dear Miss Weaver: Here is some copy for which I take no responsibility.
Rodker has some reason or other for wanting his essay printed as soon as
possible. He always has. Miss Heyman's article might precede Rodker's.
Please do not put it next to mine.
I shall have a rather longish article, that is about a page to a page and a
half, announcing the College of Arts. 2 I may be a bit late with it, but I
1 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' not printed until June 191 5.
2 This article became the basis of the following prospectus:
'It has been noted by certain authors that London is the capital of the world,
and "Art is a matter of capitals". At present many American students who would
have sought Vienna or Prague or some continental city are disturbed by war. To
these The College of Arts offers a temporary refuge and a permanent centre.
'We draw the attention of new students to the fact that no course of study is
complete without one or more years in London. Scholarly research is often but
wasted time if it has not been first arranged and oriented in the British Museum.
'The London collections are if not unrivalled at least unsurpassed. The
Louvre has the Venus and the Victory but the general collection of sculpture in
the Museum here is, as a whole, the finer collection. The National Gallery is
smaller than the Louvre but it contains no rubbish.
F 8l
London
particularly want it in. Said affair may be of a good deal of use to The
Egoist: it can't be of immediate use.
For the rest I think The Egoist can very well 'suspend publication
during duration of war.' That is better than shutting up shop altogether.
'Without chauvinism we can very easily claim that study in London is at least
as advantageous as study elsewhere, and that a year's study in London by no
means prevents earlier or later study in other capitals.
'The American student coming abroad is usually presented with two systems
of study, firstly, that of "institutions" for the most part academic, sterile, pro-
fessorial; secondly, instruction by private teachers often most excellent, often the
reverse.
'The College of Arts offers contact with artists of established position,
creative minds, men for the most part who have already suffered in the cause of
their art.
'Recognizing the interaction of the arts, the inter-stimulus, and inter-
enlightenment, we have gathered the arts together, we recommend that each
student shall undertake some second or auxiliary subject, though this is in all
cases left to his own inclination. We recognize that certain genius runs deep and
often in one groove only, and that some minds move in the language of one
medium only. But this does not hold true for the general student. For him and
for many of the masters one art is the constant illuminator of another, a constant
refreshment.
'The college prepares two sorts of instruction; one for those who intend a
career in some single art, who desire practical and technical instruction, a second
for those who believe that learning is an adornment, a gracious and useless
pleasure, that is to say for serious art students and for the better sort of dilettanti.
'The cost of instruction will vary from £20 to £100, depending on how much
the student wishes to do himself and how much he wishes to have done for him.
We recognize that the great majority of students now coming to Europe are
musical students, the next most numerous class are painters and sculptors; we
nevertheless, believe that there are various other studies which would be pursued
if students knew where to go for instruction.
'We try not to duplicate courses given in formal institutions like the Univer-
sity of London, or purely utilitarian courses like those of Berlitz. London is itself
a larger university, and the best specialists are perhaps only approachable in
chance conversation. We aim at an intellectual status no lower than that attained
by the courts of the Italian Renaissance.
' Our organization is not unlike that of a University graduate school, and is
intended to supplement the graduate instruction in "arts". This instruction is
offered to anyone who wants it, not merely to those holding philological
degrees.
'A knowledge of morphology is not essential to the appreciation of literature,
even the literature of a forgotten age or decade.
'M. Arnold Dolmetsch's position in the world of music is unique, and all
music lovers are so well aware of it, that one need not here pause to proclaim it.
Painting and sculpture are taught by the most advanced and brilliant men of our
decade, but if any student desires instruction in the earlier forms of the art,
82
1914— aetat 28
From a practical point of view it is hopeless to try to increase the sales of
The Egoist during war time. The staff might be put on half pay if any one
wants to do it, but ... the finishing up of things has not come suddenly.
Everyone has known that December would see at least 'a suspension'
unless the unexpected occurred. If we 'suspend during duration of war*
there will be reasonable colour to any efforts one might make, after war-
time, to recommence. Also, one could begin quite awhile after without
damage. Pardon, if I am running out of my own province and giving
needless advice.
instruction in representative painting awaits him. The faculty as arranged to
date, though it is still but a partial faculty, is perhaps our best prospectus.'
Among the members of the faculty were the following: Henri Gaudier-
Brzeska, Wyndham Lewis, Edward Wadsworth, Edmund Dulac, Reginald
Wilenski, Arnold Dolmetsch, Felix Salmond, K. R. Heyman, Ezra Pound, John
Cournos, Alvin Langdon Coburn.
The prospectus continues:
'As a supplement to the various courses in arts and crafts, we point out the
value of individual research in, and study of, the various collections of the South
Kensington and British Museums. We will endeavour to save the student's time
by giving general direction for such work, and initiation in method, apart from
the usual assistance offered by the regular Museum officials.
'In certain rare cases, the American college student, desiring more than his
degree, will find it possible to spend his Junior or Sophomore year in London
and return to his own University for graduation. Those desiring to do this
should of course submit to us their plans of study, together with a clear statement
of their requirements for graduation at the home college. Such students will have
to possess rather more than average intelligence.
'If intending to take graduate work for higher degrees, they may, however,
find that this form of recess will give them a distinct advantage over their
colleagues, such as fully to compensate for the inconvenience and derangement
of undergraduate studies. It is always open to them to fill in routine courses by
application to the University of London (that is to say, ordinary mathematics or
classics), pursuing said courses in conjunction with their special work with the
College of Arts.
' (End of Prospectus,)
'Remarks. — The college should come as a boon to various and numerous
students who would otherwise be fugging about in continental pensions, meeting
one single teacher who probably wishes them in the inferno, and dependent for
the rest on fellow boarders and public amusements.
'Secondly, it would seem designed to form itself into a centre of intelligent and
intellectual activity, rather than a cramming factory where certain data are pushed
into the student regardless of his abilities or predilections.* . . .
83
London
55: To Harriet Monroe
London, 12 October
GET SOME OF WEBSTER FORD'S 1
STUFF FOR 'POETRY'
Dear H.M.: Please observe above instructions as soon as possible. Poetry
is really becoming more or less what one would like to have it.
I will send in a letter in a day or so, not an article, replying to your
heresies. Why you deny the name of science or art to everything the public
don't know, is beyond me.
As to Amy's advertisement. It is, of course, comic. On the other hand,
it is outrageous. It is what one would expect of a lying grocer like n,
I don't suppose she is much to blame. Still, for us to print it in Poetry is
wrong, even if it does pay a few dollars.
1 have always objected to the Berg Essenwein 2 ad. but diis is a point
beyond it. If it dealt with biscuits or a brand of sardines n and pos-
sibly the magazines publishing the adv. would be liable to prosecution.
56: To Amy Lowell
[Pasted to the top of the first page is an advertisement of Amy Lowell 9 s
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, reading: ' Of the poets who to-day are
doing the interesting and original work, there is no more striking and
unique figure than Amy Lowell. The foremost member of the 'Imagists'
— a group of poets that includes William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Ford
Madox Hueffer — she has won wide recognition for her writing in new and
free forms of poetical expression.']
London, 19 October
Dear Miss Lowell: In view of the above arrant charlatanism on the part of
your publishers, I think you must now admit that I was quite right in
refusing to join you in any scheme for turning Les Imagistes into an
uncritical democracy with you as intermediary between it and the printers.
1 Webster Ford was E. L. Masters' penname.
2 Co-author of The Art of Versification, offered in the back pages of Poetry.
84
1 9 14 — aetat 2 9
While you apologize to Richard, your publishers, with true non-
chalance, go on printing the ad in American papers which we would not
see, save by unexpected accident.
I think you had better cease referring to yourself as an Imagiste, more
especially as The Dome of Glass certainly has no aspirations in our
direction.
I suppose you will really stop this ad sometime or other. Now that you
have presented yourself to the ignorant in so favorable a light, it won't so
much matter. W.B.Y. was perhaps more amused than delighted.
I don't suppose any one will sue you for libel; it is too expensive. If your
publishers 'of good standing' tried to advertise cement or soap in this
manner they would certainly be sued. However we salute their venality.
Blessed are they who have enterprise, for theirs is the magazine public.
P.S. I notice that the canny n in his ad refrains from giving a leg
up to any of the less well known members of the school who might have
received a slight benefit from it.
57: To Harriet Monroe
London, 9 November
Dear H.M.: Your letter — die long one — to hand is the most dreary and
discouraging document that I have been called upon to read for a very
long time.
Your objection to Eliot is the climax. No — you are not at liberty to say
that she is Mrs. F. M. Hueffer. You are especially requested to make no
allusion to the connection.
I think that is all that needs an immediate answer. — / — /
58: To Harriet Monroe
London, 9 November
Dear H.M.: No, most emphatically I will not ask Eliot to write down to
any audience whatsoever. I dare say my instinct was sound enough when I
volunteered to quit the magazine quietly about a year ago. Neither will I
send you Eliot's address in order that he may be insulted.
Now about news, I don't quite know what you can use. The stuff I had
in mind was material for write-ups of Lewis, Epstein, Brzeska and any
85
London
other good stuff that might turn up. You said you couldn't criticize stuff
you hadn't seen. However I'll get you some photos if you think you can
make anything of it.
The general theory of the new art is, I think, made fairly clear in my
article * Vorticism' appearing in the September no. Fortnightly Review.
I don't think I can get photos from Epstein unless you really want to
use them.
Now about topics of the moment. There is an exhibit of Rodin at the
South Kensington museum, good of its kind but it does look like muck
after one has got one's eye in on Epstein's Babylonian austerity. And
Brzeska's work, for all that he is only 22, is much more interesting.
Would it be any use to you to have photos of the better Rodin's? A
couple are fine and some of 'em make me sick. Slime. No form.
Brzeska by the way is at the front, French army. 7 out of his squad of 12
were killed off a few weeks ago, when scouting. He has killed two ' boches.'
The dullness in the trenches for the last weeks has bored him so that he is
doing an essay on sculpture for the next number of BLAST. Also he has
done a figure, working with his jackknife and an entrenching tool.
The exhibition of Modern Spanish Art at the Grafton is a fit exhibit to
hang where the show of the Royal Society of portrait painters hung
recently. MUCK. If it weren't in 'aid of the Prince of Wales fund' one
would be inclined to sue for one's shilling. On what pretence is it modern !
Most of the stuff that has any tendency at all is an archaism of one sort or
another. The preface to the catalog which I now look at for the first time is
as silly as the show, all anchored about 1875 anc ^ amateurish.
Picasso is not mentioned. Even Picabia is a large light in comparison
with their twaddle.
The one thing that stands out is the work of Nestor Martin Fernandez
della Torre. (This is not a fad.) Fernandez has four things, two pictures
and two black and white things. The two pictures are very different super-
ficially. Coburn and I did the show together and these things scattered
about were the only things of interest.
He paints hard and clear. As canvases of the masters of Leonardo's time
might have looked when new. It is as if he had learned from Van Gogh
and, in the portrait of the young man 'Joselito,' been younger and more
gentle. In die woman's portrait 'La maja del abanico' it is as if he had tried
to combine the Van Gogh hardness with the splendour, the ornateness, of
Seville or of the Renaissance period.
The two drawings of dances are good, but not sufficiently so to make
one remember him apart from the show, had they not been seen with the
paintings.
86
1 9 14 — aetat 29
Wadsworth, a young painter, not nearly so important as Lewis, but
good, might interest you, as he has a bee for industrial centres and har-
bours. He is doing woodcuts at the moment. I suppose I could get you a
couple, or at least get you impressions of some sort that would give you an
idea, if it's any use.
I've mentioned Wadsworth, Epstein, Brzeska and Lewis in hurried
scribbles in The Egoist. Do you see it? I think it is sent in as an exchange,
but am not sure.
May Sinclair's last book, The Three Sisters, is the best she has done. She
is just back from Belgium, went out with Red Cross, supposedly as a
secretary or something, but has been pulling wounded off the field, and
making Belgian interpreters run autos into more dangerous places than
they like, etc. She has kept her name out of the papers so far, although
everybody else has been appearing in large photos.
Wadsworth, along with Augustus John and nearly everybody, is drill-
ing in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, in a regiment for home
defence.
I was in a huge studio building, I should say the largest, in Chelsea, and
every man, save one 'sculptor' who makes monuments, had volunteered.
Wyndham Lewis, whose decorations of the Countess of Drogheda's
house caused such a stir last autumn (and they weren't very good either) is
now decorating the study of that copious novelist and critic, Mr. Ford
Madox Hueffer. And, as I intimated in my note this morning, no, for
gawd's sake don't connect Violet Hueffer with F.M.H. There have been
enough suits for libel etc. I can't go into the inner history at this moment,
but refrain from bracketing the two names.
I wonder if any of this is of the slightest use to you. Remember I don't
know the least thing about what newspapers use. I once did two book
reviews but that is the extent of my services to the daily press so you'll
have to guide me more or less.
Getting pictures would be fairly simple, in the case of Rodin or
Fernandez. I suppose I'd have to buy the prints ? ?
Conrad was reported lost either in Poland, or going thither at the out-
break of the war. I don't happen to have heard recent news of him.
Cunninghame Graham volunteered, after having lived a pacific socialist.
He is to be sent off to buy remounts, as he is over-age and knows more
about horses than anyone else except Blunt.
Blunt has brought out a two volume collected edition. Also they say he
has barred his front door and put up a sign 'BELLIGERENTS WILL
PLEASE GO ROUND TO THE KITCHEN.' 1 dare say he is watching
Egypt at the present.
*7
London
Ricketts has made the one mot of the war, the last flare of the 90's:
'What depresses me most is the horrible fact that they can't all of them be
beaten.' It looks only clever and superficial, but one can not tell how true
it is. This war is possibly a conflict between two forces almost equally
detestable. Atavism and the loathsome spirit of mediocrity cloaked in
graft. One does not know; the thing is too involved. I wonder if England
will spend the next ten years in internal squabble after Germany is beaten.
It's all very well to see the troops flocking from the four corners of
Empire. It is a very fine sight. But, but, but, civilization, after the battle is
over and everybody begins to call each other thieves and liars inside the
Empire. They took ten years after the Boer War to come to. One wonders
if the war is only a stop gap. Only a symptom of the real disease.
However this isn't news. I'll write you about the proposed College of
Arts in a day or so. I am too tired this evening, and the new prospecti
haven't come in.
I don't think you can use either that mot of Ricketts nor Blunt's jape.
These things get public and make trouble.
Blunt's collected edition and that rotten book of Masefield's are the
book news. If that sort of thing is any use to you, or if America don't get
it as soon as we do, I'll keep an eye on publishers' announcements for you.
You didn't say what sort of news you could do with.
Fletcher is fleeing to the U.S.A. on Oct. 14th. I trust the Poetry Society
will turn out to meet him. Rodker wants to know if he could get work
there.
Tuesday ', 10 November
The proof of the College of Arts prospectus has just come and I enclose
it. I was going to ask A.C.H. to give it publicity but I guess you can use it
as news quite as well. It is, obviously, a scheme to enable things to keep on
here in spite of the war-strain and (what will be more dangerous) the war
back- wash and post bellum slump. But it embodies two real ideas:
A. That the arts, including poetry and literature, should be taught by
artists, by practicing artists, not by sterile professors.
B. That the arts should be gathered together for the purpose of inter-
enlightenment. The 'art' school, meaning 'paint school,' needs literature
for backbone, ditto the musical academy, etc.
I was going to ask A.C.H. to boom it, because I think it can be made a
valuable model, or starting point for a much bigger scheme for Chicago.
This thing here is done by artists in spite of the rich, but Chicago should be
able to do a really big thing, if, as they seem able to do, they can get
88
19 14 — aetat 2,9
money and the creative people working together . My third ' Renaissance'
article will outline something. With three year fellowships, life-endow*
ment, etc.
You see also, that while the vorticists are well-represented, the College
does not bind itself to a school. Vide Dolmetsch, Robins and in less degree
Dulac and Coburn.
Also the College should be of very real service to American students, I
have seen enough of them to know.
By the way, Dolmetsch's forthcoming book ought to be good for a
column.
89
I9i£
59: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman s Hatch, January
Dear H.M.: There are two ways of existing in la vie litteVaire. As De
Gourmont said some while since: 'A man is valued by the abundance or
the scarcity of his copy.' The problem is how, how in hell to exist without
over-production. In the Imagist book I made it possible for a few poets
who were not over-producing to reach an audience. That delicate opera-
tion was managed by the most rigorous suppression of what I considered
faults.
Obviously such a method and movement are incompatible with effu-
sion, with flooding magazines with all sorts of wish-wash and imitation
and the near-good. If I had acceded to A.L.'s proposal to turn 'Imagism'
into a democratic beer-garden, I should have undone what little good I
had managed to do by setting up a critical standard.
My dissociation with the forthcoming Some Imagist Poets book, and my
displeasure, arises again from the same cause, which A.C.H. aptly calls
' the futility of trying to impose a selective taste on the naturally unselec-
tive.'
A.L. comes over here, gets kudos out of association. She returns and
wants to weaken the whole use of the term imagist, by making it mean any
writing of vers libre. Why, if they want to be vers-librists, why can't they
say so? But no, she wants in Lawrence, Fletcher, her own looser work.
And the very discrimination, the whole core of significance I've taken
twelve years of discipline to get at, she expects me to accord to people who
have taken fifteen minutes' survey of my results.
My problem is to keep alive a certain group of advancing poets, to set
the arts in their rightful place as the acknowledged guide and lamp of
civilization. The arts must be supported in preference to the church and
scholarship. Artists first, then, if necessary, professors and parsons.
Scholarship is but a hand-maid to the arts. My propaganda for what some
may consider 'novelty in excess' is a necessity. There are plenty to defend
1 the familiar kind of thing.
90
191 5 — aetat 29
60: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman s Hatch, January
Dear H.M.: Poetry must be as well written as prose. Its lan-
guage must be a fine language, departing in no way from speech save by a
heightened intensity (i.e. simplicity). There must be no book words, no
periphrases, no inversions. It must be as simple as De Maupassant's best
prose, and as hard as Stendhal's.
There must be no interjections. No words flying off to nothing. Granted
one can't get perfection every shot, this must be one's intention.
Rhythm must have meaning. It can't be merely a careless dash off, with
no grip and no real hold to the words and sense, a tumty turn tumty turn
turn ta.
There must be no cliches, set phrases, stereotyped journalese. The only
escape from such is by precision, a result of concentrated attention to what
one is writing. The test of a writer is his ability for such concentration and
for his power to stay concentrated till he gets to the end of his poem,
whether it is two lines or two hundred.
Objectivity and again objectivity, and expression: no hindside-before-
ness, no straddled adjectives (as 'addled mosses dank'), no Tennysonian-
ness of speech; nothing — nothing that you couldn't, in some circumstance,
in the stress of some emotion, actually say. Every literaryism, every book
word, fritters away a scrap of the reader's patience, a scrap of his sense of
your sincerity. When one really feels and thinks, one stammers with simple
speech; it is only in the flurry, the shallow frothy excitement of writing, or
the inebriety of a metre, that one falls into the easy — oh, how easy ! —
speech of books and poems that one has read. 1
Language is made out of concrete things. General expressions in non-
concrete terms are a laziness; they are talk, not art, not creation. They are
the reaction of things on the writer, not a creative act by the writer.
'Epithets' are usually abstractions — I mean what they call 'epithets' in
the books about poetry. The only adjective that is worth using is the
adjective that is essential to the sense of the passage, not the decorative
frill adjective.
1 1937. It should be realized that Ford Madox Ford had been hammering this
point of view into me from the time I first met him (1908 or 1909) and that I owe
him anything that I don't owe myself for having saved me from the academic
influences then raging in London. — E.P.January 1937. Footnote from Harriet
Monroe's A Poet's Life.
9*
London
Aldington has his occasional concentrations, and for that reason it is
always possible that he will do a fine thing. There is a superficial cleverness
in him, then a great and lamentable gap, then the hard point, the true
centre, out of which a fine thing may come at any time.
Fletcher is sputter, bright flash, sputter. Impressionist temperament,
made intense at half-seconds.
H. D. and William C. Williams both better emotional equipment than
Aldington, but lacking the superficial cleverness. Ought to produce really
fine things at great intervals.
Eliot is intelligent, very, but I don't know him well enough to make
predictions.
Masters hits rock bottom now and again. He should comb the jour-
nalese out of his poems. I wish Lindsay all possible luck but we're not
really pulling the same way, though we both pull against entrenched
senility.
Sandburg may come out all right, but he needs to learn a lot about How
to Write. I believe his intention is right.
Would to God I could see a bit more Sophoclean seventy in the ambi-
tions of mes amis et confreres. The general weakness of the writers of the
new school is looseness, lack of rhythmical construction and intensity;
secondly, an attempt to 'apply decoration,' to use what ought to be a
vortex as a sort of bill-poster, or fence- wash. Hinc illae lachrymae. Too
bad abotlt Amy — why can't she conceive of herself as a Renaissance figure
instead of a spiritual chief, which she ain't.
Ebbene — enough of this.
61: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman s Hatch, 3 1 January
Dear H.M.: Poe is a good enough poet, and after Whitman the best
America has produced (probably?). He is a damn bad model and is
certainly not to be set up as a model to any one who writes in
English.
Now as to Eliot: 'Mr. Prufrock* does not 'go off at the end.' It is a
portrait of failure, or of a character which fails, and it would be false art to
make it end on a note of triumph. I dislike the paragraph about Hamlet,
but it is an early and cherished bit and T.E. won't give it up, and as it is the
only portion of the poem that most readers will like at first reading, I don't
see that it will do much harm.
9*
1915 — aetat 29
For the rest: a portrait satire on futility can't end by turning that quint-
essence of futility, Mr. P. into a reformed character breathing out fire and
ozone.
Fletcher is no great judge of anything. He has a lawless and uncon-
trolled ability to catch certain effects, mostly of colour, but no finishing
sense.
I will let the unfortunate Ficke pass widiout complaint if you get on
with ' Mr. Prufrock,' in a nice quiet and orderly manner. I assure you it is
better, 'more unique/ than the other poems of Eliot which I have seen.
Also that he is quite intelligent (an adjective which is seldom in my mouth).
Yeats has sent five poems to his agent with note that they should be sub-
mitted to you; there are three here (in his desk) which will be sent either
direct or through the agent.
I know Poe wrote other poems besides 'Et le corbeau dit jamais plus.'
I have bought them pomes, also Chivers's pomes. I note: 'yore,' 'own
native,' 'Wont to roam,' 'Naiad airs,' 'yon,' even in the cameo; and they
are bad for the budding. Also inversion and periphrasis: 'bore' out at end
of line for rhyme; and slight over-alliteration. These things one doesn't
bother over so far as the gen. public is concerned and one accepts the inner
force of a poem, but it would be treacherous and dishonest to let them
pass in a thing set up as a model. They are tilings that one may do by
accident or through inability but they are not things that one should
intend.
62: To H. L. Mencken
Coleman s Hatch, 18 February
Dear Mr. Mencken: As I wrote I am 'cleaned out' of verse by a book and
two big batches of poems in Poetry and BLAST.
I send all that I have. I did it this morning. 1 1 think it has some guts, but
am perhaps still blinded by the fury in which I wrote it, and still confuse
the cause with the result.
Have sent word to various people that you want good stuff. Aldington
for light verse, W. L. George, Hueffer, May Sinclair, etc. Will see D. H.
Lawrence. Frost is in America, dull perhaps, but has something in him.
I have told him to see you or write. I should be glad if you could use his
stuff. He is much better than Wright's protegd Kemp anyhow. He has
reality.
1 An unpublished poem ' 191 5 : February'.
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The prose writer I am really interested in is James Joyce. He is in
Austria; therefore I can't write to him but you might. His
Dubliners, a book of short stories, has succeeded since I first wrote of him.
The Egoist is using a long novel 1 of his as a serial. It's damn well written.
E. L. Masters (has written as 'Webster Ford') has some
punch but writes a little too much, and without sufficient hardness of edge.
He is worth watching and printing. He and Eliot seem to me for the
moment the most hopeful American poets — closer the thing.
63: To John Quinn
[In The New Age of 21 January ', Pound had published an article on Jacob
Epstein in which he had written that the sculptor had 1 pawned his "Sun God"
and two other pieces* for sixty pounds. And he continued: * One looks out upon
American collectors buying autograph mss. of William Morris, faked Rem-
brandts and faked Van Dykes. 9 On 25 January, John Quinn wrote to Pound
protesting against that sentence as a reflection upon himself Quinn went on to
point out that he had given up collecting manuscripts; that he collected modern
art and not faked Rembrandts and Van Dykes and, indeed, had canvases by
Matisse, Picasso and Derain; that he was responsible for the new tariff law
which broke up the market in faked old masters. He inquired about the possi-
bility of getting some good work by Gaudier-Br^eska and, finally, suggested
that Pound might write for The New Republic]
London, 8 March
My dear John Quinn: Thanks, apologies and congratulations. Tf there
were more like you we should get on with our renaissance.
I particularly congratulate you on having shed your collection of mss.
and having ' got as far as Derain.' (Mind you, I think Lewis has much more
power in his elbow, but I wouldn't advise a man to buy 'a Lewis' simply
because it was Lewis. Out of much that I do not care for, there are now
and again designs or pictures which I greatly admire.) However, there are
few such reformed characters as yourself, and I might have as well said,
'medals given to John Keats for orthography, first editions of eighteenth
century authors,' instead of ' mss. of Wm. Morris,' which allusion would
not have dragged you into it and would have left the drive of my sentence
1 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
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about the same, I might have gone on about the way Morgan and a certain
old friend of his, whose niece I knew in Paris, used to buy, but Morgan is
such a stock phrase (and besides he has done some good in America by
bringing in Old Masters). Then there's Ricketts now showing Old
Masters, collected for Davis I think it is. There are a lot of heads at the
fair.
I have still a very clear recollection of Yeats pfere on an elephant (at
Coney Island), smiling like Elijah in the beatific vision, and of you plug-
ging away in the shooting gallery. And a very good day it was.
As to fake Rembrandts, etc., I carried twenty * Rembrandts,' 'Van
Dykes' and 'Velasquez' out of Wanamaker's private gallery at the time of
his fire some eight years ago. I know that they aren't the only examples in
the U.S., so my sentence was by no means a personal one. My God ! What
Velasquez! I also know a process for Rembrandts: one man studies the
ghetto and does drawings, one the Rembrandtesque method of light and
shade and manner and does the painting, and a third does the 'tone of
time.' However, that's a digression. Let me go at your letter as it comes.
I haven't seen much of Epstein of late. He and Lewis have some feud or
other which I haven't inquired into, and as Lewis is my more intimate
friend I have not seen much of Jacob, though I was by way of playing for
a reconciliation. Jacob told me some time ago that the 'Sun God' was in
hock. He told me, just before the war, it was still in hock. I heard from
W.B.Y., after I had written the article and after it was in print, that you
had bought ' an Epstein ' (' an Epstein,' not half a dozen.)
By the way, if you are still getting Jacob's 'Birds,' for God's sake get
the two that are stuck together, not the pair in which one is standing up on
its legs.
However, let me apologize for my ignorance and make an end of it.
I congratulate you on the tariff law. Have they, I wonder, done as well
by the writers as by the painters? I wrote to the President (for all the jolly
sort of good that sort of thing does). I have to pay a duty if I am in Ameri-
ca and want a copy of one of my own books, printed in England. You
can't get a book printed in America unless it conforms to the commercial
requirements. Rennert 1 had to pay some huge duty on his Life of Lope de
Vega, which is a standard and which got him into the Spanish Academy.
Only an English firm would risk the publication. The American law as it
stands or stood is all for the publisher and the printer and all against the
author, and more and more against him just in such proportion as he is
1 Hugo Rennert, once professor in Romance languages at the University of
Pennsylvania.
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before or against his time. If you are near the councils of the powers I
would be glad to make out a fuller statement. This detail is one of the
causes of American authors' coming abroad and of the funereal nature of
all serious American periodicals. The printing is supposed to be so costly
that it is impossible to publish in America, especially in periodicals which
are, as are a few in London and Paris, largely in the control of writers or in
which they have influence.
Henry IV took off the octroi from books coming into Paris some cen-
turies since, because they made for the increase of learning, and it is high
time America followed suit. The absurd tariff (25% it was) and the egre-
gious price the American booksellers stick on a foreign book, unneces-
sarily, 'because of the tariff,' are just enough to prevent sales. Example, I
caught a publisher selling my Spirit of Romance at 2 1/2 dollars. No fool
would pay that for a six shilling book. Besides, that damn swindler had
bought the book at 3 shillings by special arrangement so as to be able to
sell it at the English price (I being paid as at 3/). These are merely personal
instances, but it is the sort of thing that goes on and keeps books by living
authors out of the U.S., and the tariff, which is iniquitous and stupid in
principle, is made an excuse. All books ought to be on the free list, but
more especially all books of living authors, and of those the non-com-
mercial books, scholarship and belles lettres, most certainly.
About Gaudier-Brzeska: I naturally think I've got the two best things
myself, though I was supposed by his sister to have bought the first one out
of charity because no one else would have it. The second one is half paid
for by money I lent him to get to France with. He is now in the trenches
before Rheims. However, there is, or was, a charming bas-relief of a cat
chewing its hind foot, and there are the ' Stags,' if you like them. However,
money can't be of much use to him now in the trenches. I send him a
spare pound when I have it to finish up my payment on the 'Boy with a
Coney.' But when he comes back from the trenches, if he does come, I
imagine he will be jolly hard up. In the meantime I will find out exactly
what is unsold and let you know about it. Coburn is doing a photo of one
of my own things of Brzeska's and I hope it will interest him enough to go
on and do a portfolio, in which case you will be able to make your selec-
tion from the best possible photographs.
At any rate, I will write to Gaudier at once and see what he has, and
where it is, and how much he wants for it, and if there is anything that I
think fit to recommend I think Coburn will probably photograph it for
me. Then there will be no waste in dealer's commissions.
Which brings me back to another hobby. Speaking of 30,000 dollars for
two pictures, I 'consider it immoral' to pay more than 1,000 dollars for
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any picture (save, perhaps, a huge Sistine ceiling or something of that
sort). Your Puvises are big pictures so it don't hit you. But no artist needs
more than 2,000 dollars per year, and any artist can do two pictures at
least in a year. 30,000 dollars would feed a whole little art world for five
years.
My whole drive is that if a patron buys from an artist who needs money
(needs money to buy tools, time and food), the patron then makes himself
equal to the artist: he is building art into the world; he creates.
If he buys even of living artists who are already famous or already mak-
ing £12,000 per year, he ceases to create. He sinks back to the rank of a
consumer.
A great age of painting, a renaissance in the arts, comes when there are a
few patrons who back their .own flair and who buy from unrecognized
men. In every artist's life there is, if he be poor, and they mostly are, a
period when £10 is a fortune and when £100 means a year's leisure to
work or to travel, or when the knowledge diat they can make £100 or
£200 a year without worry (without spending two-thirds of their time
running to dealers, or editors) means a peace of mind that will let them
work and not undermine them physically.
Besides, if a man has any sense, the sport and even the commercial
advantage is so infinitely greater. If you can hammer this into a few more
collectors you will bring on another Cinquecento.
(In sculpture I might let the price run over £200, simply because of the
time it takes to cut stone. Drill work is no damn good. Both Gaudier and
Epstein cut direct, and there may be months of sheer cutting in a big bit of
sculpture, especially if the stone is very hard.) Gaudier does mostly small
things, which is sane, for the sculpture of our time, save public sculpture,
ought to be such as will go in a modern house.
About The New Republic, I am afraid it is not much use. 1 saw
and lunched with Lippmann when he was over here, but he didn't seem
disposed to take any of my stuff. A poet, you know! ! ! Bad lot, they are.
No sense of what the public wants. Even Cournos, who isn't exactly
modern, met Lippmann and said: 'You've heard of English stodge? Well,
there's one stodge that's worse. That's American stodge.'
Even The New Age has nipped my series in the middle because I have
dared to write an article praising an American writer of vers libre, one
Edgar Masters. They say it's an insult to their readers to praise vers libre
after they have so often condemned it. (God knows most vers libre is bad
enough. Still, Masters has something in him, rough and unfinished, ma !)
If you told Croly of The New Republic that I was an art critic he might
believe you, but he'd think me very bad for his paper. The fat pastures are
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still afar from me. And I have a persistent and (editorially) inconvenient
belief that America has the chance for a great age if she can be kicked into
taking it. (Whereanent some remarks in The Dial, here enclosed).
64: To Harriet Monroe
London, {? March)
Dear H.M.: You are in the same state as the late medieval
critics who insisted that Paul wrote good Greek because he was an in-
spired Christian. We now know he neither wrote good Greek nor repre-
sented the teaching of the original Christian. No matter.
You say you understand and then you just don't. Whatever talent Poe
may have had, or anybody may have had, the only stuff to use as a model
is stuff that is without flaws, or stuff in which we see the flaws so clearly
that we may avoid them.
Laws do not begin with the man who puts them in print; whatever
Maws of imagisme' are good, have been good for some time.
One condemns a fault in Poe, not because it is in Poe. It is all right for
Poe if you like, but it is damn bad for the person who is trying uncritically
to write like Poe. (Incidentally no one who has tried to write like Poe
(verse: leave his prose out of it for the present) has done anything good.
Personally I think an ambition to write as well as Poe a low one: an ambi-
tion to write like Villon or Stendhal a great ambition.)
And there is no use implying that I lack reverence for great writers. My
pantheon is considerable, and I do not admire until I have thought; that is
to say I do not admire until I (have) tested. One has passing enthusiasms:
one finds in time lasting enthusiasms.
I don't condemn any man who has made lasting or even more or less
durable art. But can't you ever see the difference between what is 'good/
and good enough for the public, and what is 'good' for the artist, whose
only respectable aim is perfection?
I don't think Pindar any safer than Poe. 'Theban Eagle' be blowed. A
dam'd rhetorician half the time. The infinite gulph between what you read
and enjoy and what you set up as a model.
'The difference between enthusiastic slop and great art' — there's a text
to preach on in your glorious unfettered desert for the next forty years.
Now about the {Catholic) Anthology: I believe Mathews is to publish it
though I haven't the matter in writing. He says, € yes.' (Admitted he hasn't
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seen the contents, still I think the thing is fairly sure.) I have now got
about all the people I can use.
I have written to Sandburg, chosen two of his poems and want a few
more.
I have already commended Masters at the top of my lungs, but if he gets
facetious he can follow Bret Harte to the dung heap. As a matter of fact, I
think he keeps his ideal of form pretty constantly before him, though I
dare say he gets little encouragement. (Yes, my American mail is 'in' this
morning.)
Bodenheim I am afraid I can't use this time, 1 I've got to keep some
balance in the book. Nor yet Bynner. Nor Lindsay; he's all right, but we
are not in the same movement or anything like it. I approve of his appear-
ance in Poetry (so long as I am not supposed to want what he wants), but
not in anything which I stand sponsor for as a healthy tendency. I don't
say he copies Marinetti; but he is with him, and his work is futurist. And
anyhow I shall be unremittingly damned for putting so much American
stuff into the Anthology (which I don't mind, but I decline to suffer for
what I don't believe in). Jingles and Bret Harte. The easy thing.
You constantly think I undervalue elan and enthusiasm. I see a whole
country rotted with it, and no one to insist that ' form' and innovation are
compatible. Most of the people who have heard of good writing are all
anchored at '76 and have forgotten it. Dam 'em.
65: To H. L. Mencken
London^ 17 March
Dear H. L. Mencken: I am glad Wilkinson has turned out something
acceptable. I came down with influenza within ten hours of getting back to
London, so have not been able to do or find anything until yesterday.
Cournos has translated a novelette from Sologub; you don't want trans-
lations, but you do want novelettes so it might do at a pinch rather than
nothing. His stuff is now with Constable; but if they have no objection to
its being used in a magazine before they do the book, I have asked him to
give you a shot at it.
I will try also to get a complete ms. of Joyce's novelette-length story
now running in The Egoist. They won't mind its appearing in the S.S.
1 But some of Bodenheim's poems were used, under the signature 'M.B. ', as it
was decided that his full name might be objectionable at a time when England
was at war with Germany.
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here if you don't. It had appeared in The Egoist in such snippets, and The
Egoist has so few readers that I don't think it would matter, and a lot of
people (oh well, no, not a lot, I suppose, in the large sense of lot but
some) who want the whole story would buy the S.S. to get it. The use of
it in the S.S. might however cut into the firm who want it for book form.
I can't tell yet. We'll see if you want it before we begin worrying.
This is the first day I have had energy to go through my mss. I find the
enclosed which have not been published. I have made clean copies of the
best. I see reasons for an editor's being reluctant. Still, Yeats likes 'The
Temperaments.' He says I have achieved the true Greek (he should say
Roman) epigram. (Besides Bastidides is such a perfect portrait of a certain
distinguished author who wouldn't recognize it, that I should greatly
regret not giving it, sometime, to the light of day.)
Sometimes I think 'Before you Were' has some guts. I don't know
whether you will like it.
I have signed 'Bishop Golias' with a nom-de-plume as it is so far out of
the style of my present work, and I think a man ought only to print one
style at a time. For god's sake don't lose that particular ms. as i
don't know whether I have another copy, and I am still too tired to make
out another.
I am afraid the two poems, ' Prayer to a Lady,' and its companion piece
lose a little force unless your audience know that Atys cut out his testicles
in a fit of religious enthusiasm.
However, here's the bloody lot, and if any of it is of use to you, so much
the better.
Joyce is evidently beginning to be 'the common man' (commercially
even), for H. G. Wells' agent wrote in to say that H.G. had put him on to
Joyce, and that he wanted to handle his stuff.
That is, I think, the sum of the London news that I have gathered in the
few days I've been up and about, save that we'll have out another BLAST
soon, and that if you touch art, even en passant, Lewis (Wyndham Lewis)
and Gaudier-Brzeska are great artists though their stuff is still so far from
the public comprehension that I don't expect many people to believe me
when I say so. Quinn has, however, written here to know if he can get a
good statue by Brzeska; and whatever Picasso has done or is about to do
in New York, I think Lewis will be able to go beyond it. I don't know what
you intend about covers and posters for the S.S. but if you can get a man
with a great future whose work is visible, mehercule ! and at the same
rates, probably, as you would pay a nobody, it might in the long run pay,
merely as advertising.
I don't know whether you have seen my article on Vorticism in The
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19 1 5— ae tat 29
Fortnightly Review for last Sept. It is a moderately clear introduction. In
any case you might keep in mind the fact that Vorticism is not Futurism,
most emphatically not. We like Cubism and some Expressionism, but the
schools are not our school. Even though they are equally distant from
Manet or from Alma Tadema.
66: To Harriet Monroe
London, 10 April
Dear Harriet: No! Had I spent more than i minute 38 seconds on the
parody on Lindsay — more per similar section of the poem — we had
neither of us achieved the result, the elan, the free bravura, the fecundity,
the felicity, the obvious rag-time of the cadence: jig jilly jig jilly jig, etc.
Perfectly good humoredly. He is better than most, than any one else of
your lot except Ford and Sandburg who are trying harder.
Lindsay's top ambition is obviously Kipling, which is all well and good
so far as it goes. Effervescence, futurism, it is very 'horrid' of me not to be
enthusiastic about it, as I am for even the botches of some of the more
constipated authors.
The rural sarcasm of Indianapolis: 1 dear editor must have been smoking
cigarettes illicitly. Has discovered the old trick of turning the picture
upside down. Thoughtful man. Future before him.
Do get on with that Eliot.
67: To H. L. Mencken
London, 18 April
Dear Mencken: Here, at last, is the satire. 2 If Nathan thinks it is too long,
I have not the slightest objection to his printing it as prose, though I
believe with the loose rhythm it will read more quickly if the rhymes come
at the ends of lines.
Also I don't mind your cutting it, if you like — especially the 1st three
pages, but I can't shorten it any more, and am inclined to think it would
1 The Indianapolis News of 11 March 191 5 had printed Pound's 'Dogmatic
Statement Concerning the Game of Chess' with the order of the lines reversed.
2 'L'Homme Moyen Sensuel,' published in Pavannes and Divisions.
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be better, as it was in an earlier version, set down looser and longer. Note
that the guts of all satire (Don Juan, for instance) are in the digressions,
k propos de bottes, and that a Don Juan canto is about the shortest length
convenient for such digression. Note that they run from 800 to 1600 lines.
Well, I have done my job in a fourth part of that, i.e. about 240 lines.
My business instinct, such as it is, makes me think the most advanta-
geous thing all round would be to boom it as the satire, 'best since
Byron.' New York is accustomed to a new Keats and a new Shelley once a
fortnight and one might vary the note. It is not such an awful lie, if one
considers that nobody has written satire, in the best English iambic
tradition, since God knows when. Hood was sheer larks. Bret Harte merely
advised the virtuous American to beware of the dangerous oriental
Chinee. Arlington Robinson in 'Miniver Cheevy' satirizes one love
eccentric. Nobody has taken on the whole caboodle.
If it goes, I can turn you out an instalment every two or three months
and it ought to focus some stray attention on the S.S.
I think that my statements in the present whoop are intelligible. That's
the intention. I have made my quiet classical remarks elsewhere, but here I
want "em to know that they are being spoken to.' I think there is very
little that won't be understood.
Anyhow, something has got to be done with it, printed as prose or as
verse. With occasional expunging if you like, though why bother? Call
it literature, lay weight on the traditional excellence and it will go. Point
out that Byron uses that naughty word ' syphilis' and that I don't. Observe
that 'whore' and 'Jesus' are left blank (sic . . . ., ....,).
As to the best form. A long, really long narrative like Juan is probably
the best, but I am perfectly willing to recognize the exigencies of the S.S.
and make each rip self-contained, as this one is.
Also it is no stronger than some things you've printed. However . . .
And it will rhyme when spoken by the most catarrhal kitchen-canary (and
only then).
I think there are one or two couplets that ought to melt even the stern
heart of Nathan. And you might remind him that long poems can be
popular provided they aren't too poetic. And we might cite examples even
among our contemporaries.
Part of the trick is a hurrying rhythm. Which was absent from your
'Hot water bag' poem, which by the way I liked very much and meant to
have sent my compliments via you to the author. 1
1 'Certainly, It Can Be Done,' by John Sanborn, The Smart Set, April 191 5,
pp. 389 ff.
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Anyhow, in the present poem, I've taken off more trimmings than I
should have, in a vain strife for a useless brevity.
God be with you.
Of course I don't expect the same rate per line for a lark of this length,
as Wright paid for short poems. Comfort the treasurer.
Also the word calor is not a misprint for color, page 4.
68: To Harriet Monroe
London, <?25> April
Dear H.M.: Rupert Brooke is dead in the Dardanelles. I have some of his
work, and will send the Post Mortem in a day or so, probably tonight. So
it will reach you in time for the June number. As even if you had got the
news by cable there would have been no time to do an appreciation in
time for the May number.
He was the best of all that Georgian group.
69: To H. L. Mencken
London, 2 May
Dear Mencken: I am sending you an unbound vol. of some stories by
Goldring; they were published under another name and had a fair bit of
notice.
As nearly as I can tell such stories as 'Lily May,' 'A London Dawn,'
'Savoir Faire,' 'Watch Night Service,' 'Life Wins,' are just about the stuff
your public wants. In ' Life Wins,' though it obviously ' rings a bell ' in the
last paragraph, he has got a curious English quality. I doubt if the story
could have been written in any other country (that is, however, an aside).
'Lily May' seems to me very good. The problem before the house is how
much do you pay? Goldring says the stories take him a hell of a time to
write.
The cheque you sent him was not, so to speak, magniloquent (I know
it's war time, so this is not a growl), anyhow you might send a tariff for
stories of 2000, 4000, 7000 words. I judge by Wilkinson's cheque that £25
is the rate for the long story. (?Can you pay more for long (25,000)
stories (novelettes) by special people with some rep., or don't it pay to
bother? 25,000 words is an unsaleable length after a writer has done a story
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of that size, so Pm not sure that you would gain much in offering a higher
rate. On the other hand it is not everyone who will write for £<a)iooo).
Your question about sending cheques via me. It don't in the least
matter. As I explained to Wright, I can't take 20 cents or 10 dollars either,
from a man across a tea table, especially when we are all rather impecunious
together, and most of the people I send in are friends or at least acquaint-
ances.
If you find an opening for my pamphleteering and polemical stuff, you
can put me next to it, or if you see a comfortable salaried job you can
remember my existence, or when you are again flush, in the days of a
future peace you can send a bouquet to cover time and postal expenses if I
have found you enough good stuff to warrant it. As I told Wright, it is
quite impossible for me to set up as a literary agent. In the meantime don't
worry about the matter.
Wright, I think, took Hueffer's first year and a half of The English
Review as his model, and the quality of The Eng. Rev. then depended, I
think, very largely on the sort of personal touch between the office and
writers, and that sort of personal touch is about all I can help you with.
The fact that some editor actually wants the best he can get is a very con-
siderable comfort to me; perhaps we had better let it go at that.
A chap named Lynch is coming in tomorrow. I shall probably have him
send something to you. (Utility rather than grace, I am afraid; however,
he may be good.)
I have, by the way, sent a sort of circular letter de rebus omnibus to
various young writers in the U.S. Orrick Johns may bring it in for your
perusal when it reaches him in the course of the circuit. There is a certain
amount of work that ought to be put through: tariff ought to be taken off
books, the people who insist on regarding America solely as a monument
to John Quincy Adams, the pilgrim fathers, Geo. W. and Co., ought to be
prodded, etc. Hope the note won't bore you to death. It is badly written,
but for a private circulation I couldn't take the time to rewrite it.
70: To Harriet Monroe
London, 17 May
Mygawddd! This is a rotten number of Poetry.
Dear H.M.: It is, honestly, pretty bad. (Marianne Moore's) titles are nice.
Beach is punk. A little bad Yeats will set us up a bit.
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191 5 — aetat 2,9
Thanks, very much, for the kindness of the adv. of my stuff. If you
repeat it, could you take out that silly quotation from the Telegraph's first
review of Personae (A.D. 1909), and substitute the Times more measured
speech re Cathay > i.e. the passages I have outlined in ink?
I am sending a Manifesto via Johns, Williams, Masters, etc., which I
want you to print (no charge !). Also I wish you could draw proofs of it
and send one to each of the signatories as I want them each to print it
somewhere.
I am not asking you, A.C.H., Mencken, Kreymborg or Dell to sign it as
it is largely against the old magazines, and I don't think anyone in an
editorial position ought to sign a manifesto definitely against other editors.
It looks too much like boosting one's own show.
H is a drivvelling ass, but kindly and amiable. S is worse, for
he not only pours out amateurish blither, but he is a rich man who does
nothing — god damn nothing — for the arts, recognizes no obligation, and
on top of it tries to 'earn a living,' which means he hogs a minor job at the
U. of P. which would be a living to some other man, but which wouldn't
pay for the gasoline in S 's automobile. Blithering sow. To see him
sitting in this room on my perfectly good furniture trying to get up nerve
enough to spend £5 on a bit of sculpture, it's enough to make a cat spew.
His name might appear on a list of guarantors, but it should appear no-
where else.
I have, as you see, re-marked the Times cutting. As a general position it
is a good thing to have it in print. How the devil the Times got on, got as
wide awake as to admit what I have been hammering on for five years,
completely mystifies me. The phrase 'talking seriously and without
parade,' is one of the best dicta on good poetry that has appeared in my
time.
Is literature limited to Christianity?
Above subject for chaste debate in the American parliament.
Oh well, it's a hell of a thing to be an editor or to be in any way respon-
sible for the prog, of letters. Yours in sympathy.
71: To Felix E. Schelling
London, June
Dear Dr. Schelling: Thank you for your note and for the monograph on
professors. I have read with interest your remarks on 'time for digestion/
'buildings/ 'wasted time of the intelligent' etc. and heartily concur. I
!05
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always wonder when the creative element will be recognized; when the
mind of the student is to be recognized as, at least potentially, dynamic,
and not solely as a receptacle.
As for the Chinese translations, they have been approved by one or two
people who know some of the originals. They are, I should say, closer than
the Rubaiyat, but then the ideographs leave one wholly free as to phrasing.
I mean, instead of * hortus inclusus ' you have a little picture of an enclosure
with two or three stalks of [illegible ideograph] grass and a flower (very
much abbreviated) inside. Or for 'to visit, or ramble' you have a king and
a dog sitting on the stern of a boat, [ideograph] 1 (No, I don't make them
nicely. I haven't a brush. The two top dabs are ripples or drops for the
water.) This charming sign does not occur in Cathay. It is merely an
exquisite example of the way the Chinese mind works.
Of course, all the ideographs are not as amusing. Fenollosa has left a
most enlightening essay on the written character (a whole basis of aesthe-
tic, in reality), but the adamantine stupidity of all magazine editors delays
its appearance. I had hoped to be able to write you of a new periodical
which should do in English what the Mercure does in France, and where
one might find ' Little Eyasses' and other matters which are interesting and
not, in the worst sense, philology. However, it is still merely vision.
Gaudier-Brzeska has been killed at Neuville St. Vaast, and we have lost
the best of the young sculptors and the most promising. The arts will
incur no worse loss from the war than this is. One is rather obsessed with
it.
P.S. Have you seen Hueflfer's When Blood is Their Argument}
P.P.S. If you are interested in the Fenollosa papers, you will find a lot of
stuff in The Drama for May.
72: To Harriet Monroe
London , (August)
Dear H.M.: Bridges' new booklet is privately printed, but he has given
me permission to quote the poems. It amounts practically to making a
free contribution, I suppose. I think the two poems quoted in full are
quite good, yes very good, especially the short one. And the cadence of
1 This is a fantasy due to ignorance which the writer has since corrected.
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1915 — aetat 29
the other is exquisite, I suppose I shall have to wait till he dies before I can
do an appreciative character sketch.
I send also the three jems of Eliot for September, and a forthcoming
' Cousin Nancy' which may do to fill the second page. 1
73: To the Editor of the Boston 'Transcript'
London, {August)
Dear Sir: I don't know that it is worth my while to call any one of your
reviewers a liar, but the case has its technical aspects and the twistings of
%ialice are, to me at least, entertaining.
I note in Current Opinion for June a quotation from your paper to the
effect that my friend Robert Frost has done what no other American poet
has done in this generation 'and that is, unheralded, unintroduced, un-
trumpeted, he won the acceptance of an English publisher on his own
terms' etc.
Now seriously, what about me? Your (?negro) reviewer might acquaint
himself with that touching little scene in Elkin Mathews' shop some years
since.
Mathews: 'Ah, eh, ah, would you, now, be prepared to assist in the
publication?'
E.P.: 'I've a shilling in my clothes, if that's any use to you.'
Mathews: ' Oh well. I want to publish 'em. Anyhow.'
And he did. No, sir, Frost was a bloated capitalist when he struck this
island, in comparison to yours truly, and you can put that in your edi-
torial pipe though I don't give a damn whether you print the fact.
You might note en passant that I've done as much to boom Frost as the
next man. He came to my room before his first book A Boy's Will was
published. I reviewed that book in two places and drew it (to) other
reviewers' attention by personal letters. I hammered his stuff into Poetry,
where I have recently reviewed his second book, with perhaps a discretion
that will do him more good than pretending that he is greater than Whit-
man. E. L. Masters is also doing good work.
You understand I don't in the least mind being detested by your under-
strappers, but I think you owe it to the traditions of the Transcript to keep
them within the bounds of veracity.
1 Only three of the four were printed: 'The Boston Evening Transcript',
'Aunt Helen', and ' Cousin Nancy', Poetry, October 191 5.
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Of course, from the beginning, in my pushing Frost's work, I have
known that he would ultimately be boomed in America by fifty energetic
young men who would use any club to beat me; that was well in my calcu-
lation when I prophesied his success with the American public and
especially with the American reviews, and I rejoice to see that it has caught
on.
But your critic's statement is caddish. Moreover, I think it unwise that
you should encourage that type of critic which limits the word 'American'
to such work as happens to flatter the parochial vanity. It is not even
Chauvinism. It is stupid.
74: To Harriet Monroe
London, 25 September
Dear Harriet: Itow tells me he is going to America next
week. I have given him a note to you. I am very fond of him, though I
mostly detest the Japs, i.e., the moon-faced thin-minded sort. This man is
a samurai, more like an American Indian to look at, the long face you see
in some of the old prints.
I don't know whether Drama or A.C.H. or anyone can get him any-
thing in Chicago. He has a good engagement in N.Y. His arm work is
very interesting — better than the Russians — ; foot work not so good. He
himself a fine fellow.
Don't know that there is much news. Hueffer up in town on leave
yesterday. It will be a long time before we get any more of his stuff, worse
luck. He is looking twenty years younger and enjoying his work.
Yeats still in Ireland. Eliot back here, thank God. Monro discovered
'Prufrock' on his unaided own and asked me about the author when I saw
him last night. I consider that Harold is dawning. He was very glad to hear
that T.S.E. was in the forefront of our {Catholic) Anthology. It was a great
waste to let the 'Portrait of a Lady' go to Others, but I was in a hurry for
it to come out before the Anth. as you know.
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1915 — aetat 29
75: To Harriet Monroe
London, 2 October
Dear H.M.: I have cabled my vote for Eliot. As you might have known.
I see no other possible award of the prize. And besides, something
ought to be done to atone for the war-poem scandal. 1
Of the people worth keeping up, Masters and Williams have profes-
sions. Masters' Spoon River appeared elsewhere and the poem he sent us is
not of any special importance. Johns would be my second choice, but his
v/ork in this volume of Poetry is hardly solid enough. Still it would be
better to give the prize to him than to a yahoo. Cannell has a good poem;
H.D. has two small verses: but it would be imbecile to compare Cannlll's
stuff to Eliot's, and H.D.'s is less important (in this vol. certainly). Lindsay
. . . Oh gawd ! ! ! Besides he has had a prize, and I don't suppose he is any
more eligible than I am. Sandburg had the prize last year.
No, if your committee don't make the award to Eliot, God only knows
what slough of ignominy they will fall into — reaction, death, silliness !!!!!!
Bodenheim shows promise in some mss. sent me, but he has nothing in
this year's Poetry, and besides he is young enough to wait. Ajan is not
American, besides he is not as good as Eliot, not anywhere near. You can
take Hueffer's commendation of Eliot to back up mine, if it is any use to
you. Even Monro's Devonshire Street occiput has been pierced.
Eliot's poem is the only eligible thing in the year that has any distinc-
tion.
The average of the year has been perhaps better than the two years
before, but there has been no particularly notable work. Except ' Prufrock'
(and, si licet, ' The Exile's Letter').
The things to be avoided are, naturally, an award to Amy, Skinner,
Fletcher, Lindsay or Aiken. Or even Ficke. If you don't give the £40 to
Eliot, for God's sake award it to yourself.
However, De Gourmont is dead and the world's light is darkened. I
write this expecting the worst. I will send in an obituary of De Gourmont.
1 A special prize for a war poefn was awarded to 'The Metal Checks' by
Louise Driscoll, Poetry, November 191 4.
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76: To Harriet Monroe
London, 12 October
Dear H.M.: Buncumb about Brooke !
A. There is no mention of Brooke in BLAST.
B. The verse referred to was written months before his death, and
BLAST was supposed to go to press in December. I am not responsible
for Lewis' times and seasons.
C The verse contains nothing derogatory. It is a complaint against a
literary method. Brooke got perhaps a certain amount of vivid poetry in
life and then went off to associate with literary hen-coops like Lascelles
Abercrombie in his writings.
Brooke would have been amused by the lines, at least I hope and sup-
pose he was man enough to have been entertained by them. If he wasn't,
God help him in limbo.
Now that his friends have taken to writing sentimental elegies about his
long prehensile toes, it might seem time for him to be protected by people
like myself who knew him only slightly.
If he went to Tahiti for his emotional excitements instead of contracting
diseases in Soho, for God's sake let him have the credit of it. And for
God's sake if there was anything in the man, let us dissociate him from his
surviving friends.
Something ought to be done to clear him from the stain of having been
quoted by Dean Inge, and to save him from friends who express their
grief at his death by writing such phrases as: (yes, here it is verbatim)
'in fact Rupert's mobile toes were a subject for the admiration of his
friends.'
That, madame, is the sort of detractor upon whose evidence you com-
plain of me.
77: To Douglas Goldring
London, <?22> November
Dear Goldring: I have had some cables from Q. He says he has fair hopes
of success with the magazine.
I don't know of anyone who wants to pay for their own publication. I
have written to one man in America to send on his poems. He wouldn't
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1915— aetat 30
expect to be paid anything, but I doubt if he could put up much or any-
thing.
Eliot has about 15 or 20 poems. He would let you have them if I sug-
gested it, but then he has no money and besides he oughtn't to be asked to
pay. He can obviously get published when he is really ready. A small book
of M.M. might strike.
Elkin is now in such a funk over the title of the anthology that he'd pro-
bably let you have special rates if you stocked a lot of it.
I wonder if you couldn't make some sort of profit in taking on approval,
or on sale, large orders, say 200 copies of good books that haven't gone.
Joyce's Dubliners hasn't sold. If you had a decent traveller you might
develop the system. It wouldn't be the same, quite, as buying remainders.
You would, without paying anything down, undertake to push good
stuff, stuff that you believed in, stuff the publisher couldn't sell himself, or
isn't selling, and that he would let you have at half rates, or something of
that sort.
It would needs brains in selecting stuck books with some go in them,
ma che.
It wouldn't need capital on your part, which seems to be your difficulty.
I shall be at Yeats' this evening (18 Woburn Bids, next St. Pancras
Church). He goes to Ireland tomorrow. Perhaps if you get this in time
you'll look in there.
You might stir up an interest, or get a marked individuality as a firm, by
my suggested scheme. I don't know. . . . Various authors might be willing
to back you to some extent.
I don't suppose my Guido Cavalcanti is any use to anyone. The sheets
are mostly at the binders where they were left by Swift and Co.'s demise.
I could let you have them for next to nothing if they are any possible use
to you. The binders want 2-1/2 d. a copy (in sheets) for their lien, but I
dare say they'd take less. I could let you have them flat for what I have to
pay the binder, and wait until you have sold some before you pay me
anything. You needn't take but a couple of hundred to begin on. If you
are amind to print a new title page and call it a new edition ? at 1/ (the first
edtn. was 3/6) price ????, as we think fit, I may be able to find some decent
press notices . . . probably lost ma chb. . . .
For god's sake don't touch it unless you think there's a chance for you
to make something.
It seems to me you might do a Poetry Bookshop minus the Aber-
crombie element. However let's wait until we can talk.
. If you don't show up this evening, perhaps you could drop in some
evening during the week? Wednesday par example?
in
London
78: To Harriet Monroe
London, 1 December
Dear H.M.: Of course the Brooke matter was an error. Ma che! It can't
harm anyone but me, and it can't hurt me much ('where I live'). Besides it
is as much the fault of BLAST as mine; Lewis ought to have got the
magazine out sooner. However, admitting it is an error, I by no means
consider it a felony, and I am not going into mourning. Other young men
have gone, and will go, to Tahiti, and they will write Petrarchan verses,
and they will be envied their enthusiastic princesses.
No one has ever swarmed up a cocoanut tree on my account, though I
have heard the second person singular of the personal pronoun. And they
are not black in Tahiti, only a faint pinkish chocolatine colour, 'a very
beautiful people' as Manning says.
Yes, the prizes 1 were peculiarly filthy and disgusting, the £10 to H.D.
being a sop to the intelligent. However, I knew it would happen. I know
just what your damn committee wants.
As to T.S.E. the 'Prufrock' is more individual and unusual than the
'Portrait of a Lady' ! I chose it of the two as I wanted his first poem to be
published to be a poem that would at once differentiate him from everyone
else, in the public mind.
I am sending on some more of his stuff in a few days, I want to see him
and talk it over first. Thank God he has got a job in London after Xmas.
Re Frost: I must again insist that I did not send that letter to The
Transcript but to the editor as a private citizen. I think however that the
charge of my being jealous of Frost ought to be nailed, perhaps even at the
disclosure of state secrets. . . . However, I am sorry if it annoyed you. But
I do get wroth at the difficulty I have in getting stuff printed in Poetry now
and again. I didn't know it was the coon I was answering, nor did it enter
my head that The Transcript was a hostile organ. I thought they had
always treated me fairly well, otherwise I should not have written them
at all.
Most certainly I did not write the letter to Braithwaite. He isn't the
editor of The Transcript ! ! ! ! Good heavens ! ! !
Little Bill (i.e. W.C.W. as distinct from Big Bill, W.B.Y.) writes that
Amy is roaring around a good deal. He also says that she and Fletcher are
1 The Helen Haire Levinson Prize of $200 was awarded to Vachel Lindsay for
'The Chinese Nightingale'; a guarantor's prize of $100 was awarded to Con-
stance Lindsay Skinner for 'Songs of the Coastdwellers'.
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1915— aetat 30
to be united in wed-lock, but this seems too perfect a consummation for
me to believe it without further testimony.
Well, I must dust out of this. Keep on moving, remember that poetry is
more important than verse free or otherwise. Be glad you have a reckless
competitor in N.Y. (Others) to keep you from believing that scenery alone
and unsupported is more interesting than humanity. Really geography is
not the source of inspiration. Old Yeats p&re has sent over such a fine
letter on that subject. I hope to print it sometime, or see it printed.
I really must stop. Am arranging new channel of communication with
Paris, etc., etc., etc.
H 11}
1916
79«' To Harriet Monroe
Coleman 9 s Hatch, 21 January
Dear H.M.: Jan. to hand. A.C.H. by far the best of it. The 'One City
Only,' as you know, I like. The Sarasate poem, with its memory of
Spanish metre, is also good.
Rodker had a mood, has not quite caught it. F W is muck of the
last variety, maudlin, philanthropists, sloppy sentimentality. 'Blanche
(of the Quarter)/ I once knew a fine upstanding woman who had faced
strikers, lived her own life in vigorous probity, and had what we can call
by no other name than a 'fine character,' rather the old 'spartan sort/
her language also was normal. But in contemplating the sort of female that
writes ' Blanche "s she said: 'Matter with 'em? Matter with 'em!!! They
ought to be caught once and raped.'
I do not agree in the case of the W female. She should be eliminated.
She has no excuse, travel won't save her. Life in the 'monde yanqui
polonaise' won't save her, travel will not develop her wits. Blowing
about her tolerance !!!!!!!!!! Gosh.
If Untermeyer had read my original imagist outlines he'd see that
Heine is one of the very people on whom one wished to focus attention.
It is Heine vs. the rhetoricians that one wants. I haven't the back files down
here, but I think I have definitely indicated Heine as one of the lights.
However let the Killkennies slaughter each other.
F W is a fine example of whatW.B. Y. has called in painting ' the
mangel-wurzel period.' Vide pictorial correspondence Anne Estelle Rice
(Tapioca).
Yeats and Hueffer both seem grumped about your anth. (The New
Poetry). You did ask 'em for pretty big sections ... and despite signs of
improvement (chiefly Masters, who will be read here), the possibility of
being printed along with a great exposition of transpontine talent does not
yet lure the developed mind. I doubt if I can do anything about it. F.M.H.
is taken up with his soldiering and one only sees him when he's on leave.
I hope you are not including all the contributors to Poetry in the
anth. . • • However, I shall be interested to see the result.
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I believe, if Spoon River goes well enough, and if you print more E.M.
you might — or he might, if he are not too beastly occupied — get his
English publisher Werner Laurie, to circulate Poetry properly in
England.
And what the hell is the use of people writing about (page 203) people
being 'sodden with drink and capable too of the highest flights of the
soul'? 'Mr. Jones not only kept a horse but a yellow canary.' Is Amy's
book any good? She has read a reasonable amount and ought to know the
subject, but her weakness for Fort is a febrile symptom. Still she got
started before Fort went so to rot and it is hard to drop an enthusiasm. She
ought to be a great service to her contemporaries Ma ch&. . . .
80: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman s Hatch, January
Dear H.M.: Joyce has at last sent some poems. He says he sends 3 and
only encloses 2. I shall try to get typed copies from him. 'Flood' is, I
think, worth printing. Can you manage to pay him at once}
Perhaps you can use both the poems. He is a writer who should be kept
up. And it is the war that has put him out of his job in Trieste (this last is
not an aesthetic reason).
It is an outrage that he shouldn't have got something from his books by
now. Which isn't our fault. Ma chfc.
81: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
Coleman's Hatch, {February)
Dear Miss Weaver: I agree with you. If Lewis' novel (Tarr) begins in
April, my article should go into March, with a rather full announcement
that the novel is to start in April, and that a new 'bust out* is expected.
I think sample copies of both March and April might be sent to the list
of names I have sent you, unless you think that too lavish. It might pay. I
don't know. The prod plus the curiosity about the novel. . . .
I shall not send in any copy for April, as I think all possible space ought
to be given Lewis in that number. My eleven further articles can be sent in
"5
London
as you wish, or if you wish. You can announce that I am to contribute
during the coming year, or not, as you like, in the March number along
with die other announcements. It may please as many as it will displease.
Perhaps Madame Ciolkowska might also make some announcement.
She might give her stuff a new name or something. She is usually interest-
ing, I don't suggest any real change in the nature of her copy, but she
might start a 'New Series' or something, just to make it look as if the
spring house-keeping were thorough and vigorous.
I think Aldington might be put onto Prose Authors of the Renaissance.
Poggio, Aretino, Sannazzaro, Erasmus* dialogues, etc. I don't want to
interfere with any of his plans, but if he is ever to do a book on that period
it might be of use to him to get his general material into shape, and a series
of this sort with some biographical matter might be made rather human
and interesting. One might go back as far as Petrarcha. I haven't read his
prose, but there may be more snap in it than in his verse. The articles
should be informative rather than controversial. I believe Poggio's travels
are interesting if anyone could be persuaded to dig out the right selections.
At least it would be 'off the war' widiout being too precious. The historic
background is interesting if he will take the trouble to 'get it up.'
About Madame Ciolkowska, if she could find, say six writers each
worth a full article, it might have a bit more grip, and be a better start for a
'new series.' It can't be denied that Paris is rather dead just at present. I
wonder if there were any interesting 'heavy' books brought out just
before the war ? ? ? ?
Oh well, enough of this.
82: To Harriet Monroe
Coleman 9 s Hatch, (February)
DearH.M.: LESBIAD. NO. HELL NO.
I began reading it carefully, pleased that someone should try the impos-
sible, knowing the immense difficulty. I meet diree attempts at the ' Viva-
mus, mea Lesbia.' Not much Catullus and a lot of muck added. Then I
come to positively the worst travesty of the 'Ille me par esse deo videtur'
that has ever been perpetrated. In this poem Catullus changed, and made
possibly a little more austere, Sappho's 'PHAINETAI MOI KENOS
ISSOS THEOISIN.'
Even Landor turned back from an attempt to translate Catullus. I have
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19 1 6 — aetat 30
failed forty times myself so I do know the matter. But there are decent
and dignified ways of failing, and this female has not failed in any respect-
able way.
The most hard-edged and intense of the Latin poets should not be
cluttered with wedding-cake cupids and cliches like 'dregs of pain,' etc.,
etc., ad. inf. Pink blue baby ribbon.
You need not communicate my opinion to the female. — There's no use
cutting up a writer unless there is some chance of doing them some
good.
I think it would be a mistake to review a book of so little worth as this
is, however nicely printed. It shows neither merit nor promise, there is not
enough good to make it profitable to point out the faults.
As for 'mood transcriptions/ nothing could possibly be further from
Latin feeling than this bake-shop decoration. God ! she's no better than
Storer, probably not so good.
Now another matter. Talking with Yeats yesterday, he said it is ' ridicu-
lous for Poetry to sell at six pence, you ought to charge a shilling.' This
point is perhaps worth considering.
P.S. Forty years of hard labour might teach the Catullus female some-
thing but I doubt it.
83: To Harriet Monroe
London, 5 March
Dear H.M.: I had a long letter from (Sturge) Moore which I have
destroyed. I have to some extent pacified him as you see by this card.
But I wish you could realize the uncomfortable position you place me
in by reducing the rates of payment without informing me. I am not inti-
mate with Moore and therefore it is all the worse. Or rather I don't know
which is worse in dealing with these older men who have been accustomed
to certain consideration: to have an intimacy clouded as by the reduction
on Hueffer and the scandalous shift later, or to be put de puntos with a
man whom I meet rather frequently at W.B.Y.'s but with whom I have
always a slight disagreement.
Again the anthology crops up (in his first letter which I destroyed). Of
course, here people get paid for lending poems to anthologies. Where one
is breaking die way, as I was in Des Imagistes, or trying to bring in new
people as in the Cat. Anth., there is no money. But America has no stand-
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ing here, and if you write for free contributions, you must at least write as
if you were asking and not conferring a favor. Perhaps you did. Neither,
considering the awful rabble that has been admitted to Poetry, can you
expect men of position here to be eager to appear in a book simply quali-
fied as an anthology from Poetry ', or whatever it is you tell them.
As to rates, less than ten dollars per page is not a good rate. One gets ten
or fifteen dollars for a sonnet in plenty of places, and Poetry gets much
more than 14 lines to a page . . . and the less commercial the man, the less
will he be bothered with fuss.
Of course I dare say his damn poem is only eight pages long. ... Ma
ch& Cristo ! !
Still: either Poetry is Maecenas, upholding a principle that poetry ought
to be decently paid, or else it is a sheet begging for favours . . . which last
it, of course, is not. But nothing is more enraging to a writer than to
receive less than he has been led to expect (even if it is only ten cents less)
for a job.
As W.B.Y. writes to his sisters: ' Are you a convent, or are you not? '
Another detail you might remember is that every Englishman has once
or twice or twelve times in his life been cheated by one or more of our
compatriots. (I myself more times, and I should never trust an American
voluntarily and consciously until I had known him some time.) This is of
course unfair to the 99 just men in the hundred, but it takes so little to stir
up all the memory these people have of 'American business,' that these
small misunderstandings are very difficult for me to deal with.
What I want, and what would be best for the magazine would be for me
to be able to select from Moore's mss. — from anybody's — and to know
when he had done a really fine thing and then get it. This of course can't
be done after strained relations. No one in England will submit stuff for
editorial selection — at least no one worth anything. The present political
degradation of our country will not help things.
Being the best magazine in America is not good enough (that you know
perfectly well). There is this country — intelligently selective even when
not creative (at least more intelligently selective than ours). There is also
an absolute standard.
P.S. The fact that there's an awful slump in Eng. poetry just at this
moment is all the more reason why we should go on trying to maintain our
contention that we print the best of it. Moore isn't a colossus but still he
isn't a yahoo like Chesterton, etc., etc.
We ought to have had that incomprehensible thing of H.D/s in the
March Egoist and there were two decent things by R.A. in the Poetry
Journal some time ago. When do we get some Masters}}} Mind you, I
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thought the last Poetry (Feb.) fairly solid and the prose stuff uniform.
(Yes, quite apart from Sandburg on me.) I thought die standard of criti-
cism in the number good, and without the howlers that so often annoy
me.
84: To Kate Buss
London, 9 March
Dear Miss Buss: It is always pleasant to know that one has a reader. As
my American royalties amount to about one dollar 85 cents per year, I am
naturally surprised to discover, or have revealed to me, the presence of so
rare a phenomenon, habitat U.S.A.
I have forwarded your request for books to Mathews. Now unfortun-
ately Mrs. Henderson wrote to me or him only a fortnight ago, I suppose
about you, and I think from a note of Mathews' which I have mislaid that
he, like the sap-headed imbecile that he is, has sent your lot of books to the
infernal chasm of the Boston Transcript. If you don't receive them in a
week or so, or if they don't turn up unlabeled at the B.T. office (in which
case they will probably be given to the janitor), I think you had best write
to Mathews.
I enclose announcements of part of my immediate activity and will put
the photo either in this envelope or another, depending on its size when I
find it. (I am just back from Sussex and still littered with the debris of
Gaudier's studio, so it may be a long process — the finding.) It is the most
recent, probably the most disagreeable, and slightly resembles Mr. Shaw,
which I do not.
Re Gaudier-Brzeska: leaflet explains itself.
Re Egoist: Am trying to put a little life into it again. If I succeed in
getting a little cash I shall properly revive it. Lewis' novel is entertaining,
and I am much pleased with their sporting intention of publishing Joyce's
novel in despite of all fools, printers, censors, etc., whatsoever. It, the
novel, is a very fine piece of work, and I hope you will review it also when
it finally comes out.
Of course American publishers ought to be stirred up into doing such
things. They are rather weak in the back, also they skulk behind the
beastly tariff on books, which you and the rest of the inhabitants should
not sleep until you get rid of. It is as bad as a second Wilson.
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Further announcement:
CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ERNEST FENOLLOSA
SELECTED AND FINISHED BY EZRA POUND
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. B. YEATS
Now being published by the Cuala Press (10/6). I expect proofs any day.
I dare say they'll send you a review copy if you write to them for it.
But if you want 'copy' you'd better save it for an article on
the new theatre, or theatreless drama, about which there'll be a good deal
to say soon, as Yeats is making a new start on the foundation of these Noh
dramas.
My occupations this week consist in finally (let us hope) dealing with
Brzeska's estate; 2, getting a vorticist show packed up and started for New
York; 3, making a selection from old father Yeats' letters, some of which
are very fine (I suppose this will lap over into next week), small vol. to
appear soon; 4, bother a good deal about the production of Yeats' new
play.
This letter as a pure prose composition may suffer slightly in conse-
quence.
Biographical or otherwise: Born in Hailey, Idaho. First connection with
vorticist movement during the blizzard of '87 when I came East, having
decided that the position of Hailey was not sufficiently central for my
activities — came East behind the first rotary snow plough, the inventor of
which vortex saved me from death by croup by feeding me with lumps of
sugar saturated with kerosene. (Parallels in the life of Fracastorius.) After
that period, life gets too complicated to be treated coherently in a hurried
epistle. It is very hard to compose on this topic.
Bibliography is in Who's Who, I think; at least it is right in the English
W. W. I can't keep track of the others.
Small Maynard in Boston are supposed to publish two of my books, a
selection of poems and an ill-starred Guido Cavalcanti (I dare say they will
send you a review copy of that, or them, if you ask). I wish someone would
put a little dynamite under them for it is slightly ridiculous that the
.000000000000000000000% of the great American public which wants my
work should have to send to England for five or six small books instead of
decently purchasing one volume inclusive and up to date in the U.S.
I shan't publish again here until after the war, so with the exception of
Cathay, there is nothing newer than Ripostes diat is available. I don't know
why all the spirit of adventure in these matters should be confined to a few
round sleepy little old men in this city. Besides Coburn has done such a
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19 1 6— aetat 30
classic effigy that even Yeats thinks it ought to placate the public and con-
sole them for the verses to follow. He complains now that my stuff gives
him no asylum for his affections. (That is intimate conversation and not
for quotation save indirectly.)
I have told Mathews to send you also a Cat. Anth. {Catholic Anthology).
The Jesuits here have, I think, succeeded in preventing its being reviewed
in press (at least I have seen no review during the past months). Poor
Elkin wailing, 'Why, why will you needlessly irritate people?*
E.P.: 'Elkin, did you ever know Meynell to buy a book?'
E.M.: ' n n n n n- no, I ddddon't know that he ever did. He always wants
me to be giving him books. He he he said, " You won't sell a copy, sir, you
won't sell a copy," banging the table with his fist.'
(That you can quote, anywhere you like.)
I think die decent papishes are just as much pleased as anyone else, and
have just as clear a vision of the firm of as anyone else has.
Having forged the donation of Constantine (some years since) they now
think the august and tolerant name belongs to them, a sort of apostolic
succession.
I know I should be more grave in view of events on the continent, but I
can't spend all my time writing obituaries; which seems about all there is at
the moment. I shall try to finish a brief 'Henry James' for the May Egoist.
What have I left out? Do keep an eye out for Joyce and also for T. S.
Eliot. They are worth attention.
The Poetry with your Armenian stuff hasn't yet arrived.
Interruption of two hours. It is now too late to go on with
this.
P.S. I am afraid this is a very helter-skelter sort of reply, but short his-
tories of one's life are difficult impromptu.
85: To John Quinn
London, 10 Match
Dear Quinn: Lewis has just sent in the first dozen drawings. They are all
over the room, and the thing is stupendous. The vitality, the fullness of the
man ! Nobody knows it. My God, the stuff lies in a pile of dirt on the man's
floor. Nobody has seen it. Nobody has any conception of the volume and
energy and the variety,
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Blake, that W.B.Y. is always going on about ! ! ! 1 Lewis has got Blake
scotched to a finish. He's got so much more in him than Gaudier. I know
he is seven years older. Ma chi Cristo !
I have certainly got to do a Lewis book to match the Brzeska. Or per-
haps a * Vorticists' (being nine-tenths Lewis, and reprinting my paper on
Wadsworth, with a few notes on the others).
This is the first day for I don't know how long that I have envied any
man his spending money. It seems to me that Picasso alone, certainly alone
among the living artists whom I know of, is in anything like the same
class. It is not merely knowledge of technique, or skill, it is intelligence
and knowledge of life, of the whole of it, beauty, heaven, hell, sarcasm,
every kind of whirlwind of force and emotion. Vortex. That is the right
word, if I did find it myself.
In all this modern froth —that's what it is, froth, 291, Picabia, etc., etc.,
etc., Derain even, and the French — there isn't, so far as I have had oppor-
tunity of knowing, one trace of this man's profundity.
Brzeska's ' Jojo' sits impassively before me, flanked by a pale mulatto,
and something (blue drawing) in spirit like Ulysses in a storm passing the
Sirens. If any man says there is no romance and no emotion in this vor-
ticist art, I say he is a liar. Years ago, three I suppose it is, or four, I said to
Epstein (not having seen these things of Lewis, or indeed more than a few
things he had then exhibited), ' The sculpture seems to be so much more
interesting. I find it much more interesting than the painting.'
Jacob said, 'But Lewis' drawing has the qualities of sculpture.' (He may
have said 'all the qualities' or 'so many of the qualities.' At any rate, that
set me off looking at Lewis.)
What the later quarrel with Jacob is, I do not know, save that Jacob is a
fool when he hasn't got a chisel in his hand and a rock before him, and
Lewis can at moments be extremely irritating. (But then, damn it all, he is
quite apt to be in the right.)
Oh well, enough of this. You'll soon have the stuff before you.
86: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 17 March
Dear Miss Weaver: I personally should prefer the Joyce novel without
an introduction by anyone. However, that is a practical point outside my
jurisdiction.
12a
1916— aetat 30
As for early or late in the season, I think that is all nonsense in connec-
tion with a book of this sort. If it were to be sold by Smith and the other
barrators, or if it were to go through the usual channels of corruption
there would be some reason for consulting their times and seasons. But a
book like this which the diseased and ailing vulgar will not buy can take its
own course.
If all printers refuse (I have written this also to Joyce) 1 suggest that
largish blank spaces be left where passages are cut out. Then the excisions
can be manifolded (not carbon copies, but another process) by typewriter
on good paper, and if necessary I will paste them in myself. The public can
be invited to buy with or without restorations and the copyright can be
secured (on) the book as printed. That is to say the restorations will be
privately printed and the book-without-them ' published.'
And damn the censors.
Joyce is ill in bed with rheumatism, and very worried, and I hope for his
sake, as well as for the few intelligent people who want the book, that it
can manage to come out.
Professional people never have any real knowledge about what an un-
usual book will do, and when cornered they usually confess it, so I don't
think their advice about times and seasons is worth much. And par ex-
ample, the 'practical* Pinker was able to do less than I was, and was very
glad of my aid in getting the mss. even read.
Let me know when you want copy for May number, s.v.p.
P.S. Pardon haste of this note but I am really hurried.
Can you come to tea with us sometime when I get a spare hour? I will
write.
87: To Wyndham Lewis
London^ March
Dear Lewis: I have cabled Quinn, written to Miss Weaver, and had up
Pinker's office on the phone. They say he won't be back today (I phoned
at 2.15, it is now 2.25). His secretary says Joyce's ms. is now at Werner
Laurie's. I don't think that matters, but . . . , no, I don't think it matters
save that V's pull will be strengthened or weakened according as W.L.
likes or dislikes the Joyce.
P.S. Perhaps old Stg. Moore could do something with the Royal Lit.
Fund.
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88: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 30 March
Dear Miss Weaver: I find that the name and address of Kreymborg's pub-
lisher is John Marshall, 331 Fourth Ave., New York, U.S.A.
I have just written him direct a very strong letter re Joyce, advising him
to print the Joyce in preference to my book, 1 if his capital is limited. I
can't go further than that.
I advise you to send him (i.e., mail to him not to Kreymborg) at once
the leaves of The Egoist containing the novel and also the bits the printer
cut out. He may as well have it all, and at once while my letter is hot in his
craw.
My other letter was to Kreymborg for Marshall, I think the two letters
ought to penetrate some one skull.
89: To Iris Barry
[Pound had seen some of Iris Barry 9 s poems in Harold Monro s magazine,
Poetry and Drama. On 2 April he wrote to Miss Barry, asking if he might
see more of her work and suggesting that some might be used in Poetry
(Chicago).]
London, 17 April
Dear Miss Barry: It is rather difficult to respond to your request for
criticism of your stuff. I am not quite satisfied with the things you have
sent in, still many of them seem to have been done more or less in accor-
dance with the general suggestions of imagisme, wherewith I am too much
associated. The main difficulty seems to me that you have not yet made up
your mind what you want to do or how you want to do it. I have intro-
duced a number of young writers (too many, one can't be infallible);
before I start I usually try to get some sense of their dynamics and to dis-
cern if possible which way they are going.
With the method of question and answer: Are you very much in earn-
est, have you very much intention of 'going on with it,' mastering the
medium, etc.? Or are you doing vers libre because it is a new and attrac-
1 This Generation, never published.
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1916— aetat 30
tive fashion and anyone can write a few things in vers libre? There's no use
my beating about the bush with these enquiries. I get editorial notes from
odd quarters blaming me that I have set off too many people.
I can send on your stuff to Chicago as it is, if you like. I should prefer to
see more of it first, if that is convenient.
Coming to details. In 'Impression,' I don't think 'dissolved* is just the
right word, though I recognize that you may have been aiming at a sort of
restraint or under-emphasis which can be effective.
In 'The Fledgling,' 'emancipated from the home 'seems to me a defin-
itely Fabian Society or cliche phrase, you might have used it with " "
marks in an ironic passage, but the rest of this poem is grave, and the
reiteration of 'The fire is nearly out, the lamp is nearly out' in the first 2
and last 2 lines seems to me very effective. In fact, the poem seems to me to
be good, and all its words in one tone, homogeneous, in key, save this one
Latin, doctrinaire term.
I am not sure that the sonnet 'The Burial' isn't the best of the lot. Not
that I like it best.
The Sapphic affair seems to spoil itself by a touch of trifling. I may be
wrong. I think both passion and sensuousness are really without humour.
One can be ironic and critical of their defects, or one can be gravely in
sympathy. I can't recall any effective poetry that does not comply with one
or other of the cases ? ? ? ? ? ?
Some of the things seem to me 'just imagistic,' neither better nor worse
than a lot of other imagistic stuff that gets into print. If I am to hurl a new
writer at the magazine with any sort of conviction I must have qualche
cosa di speciale, I must have at least three or four pages of stuff which
'establish the personality.' At least I am not interested in the matter unless
I can do that. I simply forward some mss. without comment.
In some of the 'regular' stuff, you fall too flatly into the 'whakty
whackty whakty whakty whak,' of the old pentameter. Pentameter O.K.
if it is interesting, but a lot of lines with no variety won't do.
I don't see what you gain by the form ' maked ' in ' Biography' ? ?
Re cadence: 'Some loving thoughts still linger here with me,' seems
rather a flat hobby horse sort of movement, that we've all heard till we're
dead with it. So many of your pentameter lines seem all in one jog
whereas the metre skillfully used can display a deal of variety.
With some of the things, as I said, there is nothing to distinguish you
from a lot of neo-imagists, and there are too d'd many neo-imagistes just
at present.
'Monstrance' seems to me a beastly literary, magazine-poetry sort of
word. Enough to spoil any mood.
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No, hang it all, the stuff in Poetry and Drama (Dec. 1914) seems to me
to have more passion and considerably more individuality than anything
you have sent me in this sheaf.
'That . . . which . . .' etc. in 'Persian Desert* line 5 seems a little
clumsily arranged.
(Of course if a thing moves one, all this minutiae is no matter, or not
much matter, but a series of these minute leakages will sink a poem, or a
group of poems.) As to this particular poem, I can't read it so as to make
the final cadence really a close or ending. (That may be my dulness, but I
don't get the rhythm. The last line seems to me to be a tripping little line,
gaily running tatatati, four very short little vowels, the soft 'owl' and then
the long ie.)
I think you might get a certain edge or cut of sensuousness, passion
whatever you like to call it, and which would relieve the very gentle sort
of impressionism-imagisme of ' Picture,' which is quite nice as it is, but not
different from a poem I received last week.
It is so dashed hard to find poems different from the poems rec'd last
week, and the beastly magazine gets so depressing if one doesn't find them.
I don't know whether any of these suggestions are any use to you, or
whether you want to 'have another go' at any of the poems you have sent
in.???? In any case I should like to see a large mass of your stuff, if there is
a larger mass. (If there isn't or if there isn't going to be ... it is not much
worth my while arguing with an editor.) Though in any case I would
send on to Chicago some or all the mss. you have sent in, if you wish it.
Several of the things would do to fill up a group of things if there were a
few more salient poems to fire it.
On second thought I return you the poems which interest me least (five
of them).
There is a newer American publication, which alas does not pay its con-
tributors, but which would print some of those I am keeping if Poetry
refused. But I want a larger lot of poems to look through before I send
any off.
My present feeling is that ' nothing is worth while save desire* and I am
sick of verse without it. Or else there is a bitterness which shows the trace
of desire, that also can make good verses, but placidity is a drug, at least
for the season.
Ah well, you may have got a worse overhauling than you wanted, but
one can't criticize and be tactful all at once. And at any rate, I shan't have
kept you waiting six months for an answer.
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90: To Harriet Monroe
London, 21 April
Dear H.M.: April number depressing. Re March: I didn't mean you to
print that letter to you, 1 and not to Poetry, that you quoted. What I did
want printed was the note on The Dial, and I repeat for the 444444444444-
44th time that I can not see any sense in your keeping on terms with these
old dodderers, treacherous decrepit old beasts who would, you know per-
fectly well, stab you in the back the first chance they got, and suppress us
all together.
However, on the positive side:
I think — both because it would be a good thing in itself, and since there
has been such a deluge of rhetoric and slush spilled over new verse, and
since you have printed excerpts from my not very compact or well-phrased
letter — that:
It would be a good thing to reprint my original ' Don'ts,' with the addi-
tion of a few notes, emendations or additions. An 8 or ten or 12 page
pamphlet for ten cents. It would certainly pay its expenses, and it could be
more widely dispersed than a bound volume of Poetry at 1.50 would be
likely to be. It would be much better than my writing new articles pointing
out the various sorts of silliness into which neo-imagism or neogism is
perambulating, which latter could with difficulty escape allusions to Amy
and Fletcher, etc. etc.
The first anthology was designed to get printed and published the work
of a few poets whose aim was to write a few excellent poems, perhaps not
enough for even the slenderest volume, rather than the usual magazine
thousands of E B , the futurist diarrhoea, rhetorical slush, etc.
That first type of poet is the one worth caring for. I do not think the
present methods of the neoists are in any way designed to further or foster
the 'few perfect' things against Chestertonian or Paul Fortian sloppiness.
The general copying of a few of the most superficial characteristics of the
first group of writers does no more good to American poetry than the
former slavery to the Century-Harper's ginger-bread, stucco, paste-board
ideal. You will remember that the 'Don'ts' were originally intended as a
slip to be sent with returned mss. so the idea of a pamphlet is not so far off
the original intention.
Production in England at present very low. I have had in
some stuff from Iris Barry, have sent back part and told her to let me see a
1 Letter No. 60, p. 91, was printed in Poetry, March 1916.
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larger mass. I think one can get a four or five page group from her,
ultimately.
Eliot has been worried with schools, etc. (i.e. teaching, not schools of
verse or porpoises). He is to come in next week to plan a book, and I will
then send you a group of his things.
91: To Iris Barry
London, 24 April
Dear Miss Barry: Don't bother to type mss. for me if you have so little
free time; your hand is fairly legible. . . . Still, one does sometimes see a
poem better in typescript, but don't bother to make new copies.
1 Impression 9 1 'dissolve' is bad not only because it is, as I think, out of
key with what goes before but because it really means a solid going into
liquid, and when you compare that to pear-petals falling, you blur your
image. Conceivably, crystals suspended in liquid might dissolve quickly,
but if they fell they would slip away slowly through the water. At least the
word bothers me. 'Faster' may be the hitch; one doesn't always get the
real trouble at the first shot, but one can sometimes tell about where it lies.
You might say 'Then we drifted apart' or forty other things; the phrase
'friendship was dissolved' is I think newspaperish, and then it is passive
and your comparison is active: ' petals fall'; 'was dissolved.'
(You are quite right, it is much easier to go at such points in talk than by
letter. However.)
It isn't so much 'getting a better word' very often as doing a new line.
Your practice with regular metres is a good thing; better keep in mind
that <it) is practice, and that it will probably serve to get your medium
pliable. No one can do good free verse who hasn't struggled with the regu-
lar; at least I don't know anyone who has.
In 'The Fledgling': I don't see why you don't say simply 'escape'
instead of 'be emancipated.' The 'for ever' in your 'gone for ever'
emendation seems to me a litde in excess of the real emotion (which is
desire to get free, rather uncalculating) ? ? ? ? ? At least it is a little out of key
with the rest of the words ... as I feel it.
Re ' Girls 9 1 1 think you are right, it is not the best you can do, and you
had better take a new canvas.
Re ' Monstrance' *: You are out of my depdi. I don't in the least know
what to say about a word that has a Catholic association. If it has, it will
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probably make the word or the poem right to Catholic readers. ?? Is
there any way of making it carry to non-Catholic readers to whom
'monstrance' gives a sort of mood-breaking jolt? Ars longa.
In 'Nocturne 9 : 1 wonder if you are right to jump from 'slipped* in the
first strophe, to 'remember' in the second. I shouldn't say 'His young
head crowns,' inversion with no special meaning or reason.
'In the Desert 9 1 The 'that stirs which' can be avoided in a dozen ways.
'Wind steps through the darkness' (possibly too violent).
The thing I notice in your emendations is that you stick very tight to
the form or arrangement of words you have already used. Better get the
trick of throwing the whole back into the melting-pot and recasting all in
one piece. It is better than patching.
A new line or a new word may demand the rewriting of half a poem to
make it all of a piece.
Re metre: What they call 'metre' in English means for the most part
'iambic' They have heard of other metres and tried a few, but if the music
of the words and the feel of the mood are to have any relation, one must
write as one feels. It may be only an old hankering after quantitative verse
that is at the bottom of it. All languages I think have shown a tendency to
lengthen the foot in one way or another, as they develop.
Well, send on what you've got and I will go through it.
92: To Iris Barry
London, 2 May
Dear Miss Barry: No, there's no hurry about retouching the rest of the
verses. I can't place them anywhere to any advantage until the first lot
comes out in Poetry, not, that is, unless by a very rare chance we bring out
another BLAST. Not that this is any reason why you shouldn't send
them (i.e. the verses attacked) or the new ones to me whenever you feel
like it, only there is no external or mechanical cause of haste.
If you can't escape your Birmingham, you had better get Karl Appel's
Provenialische Chrestomathie out of the university library. German publi-
cation not likely to be got for you through a bookseller, but the university
ought to have it. (There is a university in B. isn't there?) I'll lend you
what's left of my copy if there isn't.
And really you mustn't send me large books of stamps. In my strictly
quasi-editorial capacity, I may have used about six, which I remove for the
sake of companionability.
I "9
London
93: To Iris Barry
London y May
Dear Miss Barry: If you have a passion for utility, and if by any chance
you intended to get my new volume of poems Lustra when it comes out,
then do for God's sake order your copy at once and unabridged.
The idiot Mathews has got the whole volume set up in type, and has
now got a panic and marked 25 poems for deletion. Most of them have
already been printed in magazines without causing any scandal whatever,
and some of them are among the best in the book. (It contains Cathay \
some new Chinese stuff and all my own work since Ripostes.)
The scrape is both serious and ludicrous. Some of the poems will have
to go, but in other cases the objections are too stupid for words. It is part
printer and part Mathews.
At any rate if you were going to want the book, do write for it at once,
unabridged.
The printers have gone quite mad since the Lawrence fuss. Joyce's new
novel has gone to America (America !) to be printed by an enthusiastic
publisher. Something has got to be done or we'll all of us be suppressed,
a la counter-reformation, dead and done for.
P.S. Elkin Mathews called in Yeats to mediate and Yeats
quoted Donne at him for his soul's good. I don't know what will come of
it.
94: To Harriet Monroe
London, 5 June
Dear H.M.: So long as you put the 'Cabaret' question on the grounds of
expediency and the assininity of your guarantors, or in fact on any ground
save the desire of the editor for the candy box, I suppose I must submit. I
enclose the only other poem I have ready, to go with the inoffensive selec-
tion you already have. For god's sake print 'em at once.
My next contribution will probably be a 40 page fragment from a more
important opus.
I approve of your trying to use the larger things (re Head etc.); but
Drama is a dam'd form, tending nearly always toward work of secondary
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19 1 6— aetat 30
intensity, though the tendency doesn't always set in strong enough to
wreck the work.
I am writing to W. H. Davies for some poems. I was much impressed
by his reading a few days ago. I doubt very much if the things will carry in
print; at least they must lose a lot by not having them done by his own
voice, but there seems to be something in him, or rather in his later work.
I saw the early stuff some years ago, and he hadn't then got very far.
I didn't much mind my letter to you being printed, but there were
things I wanted printed much more, and the letter could have been much
better if it had been intended for print. The very name of the U.S. presi-
dent is an obscenity. I suppose it is debarred on these grounds.
My Lustra is all set up, and I find I have been beguiled into leaving out
the more violent poems to the general loss of the book, the dam'd bloody
insidious way one is edged into these tacit hypocrisies is disgusting.
I don't mean I have left out anything I put into the ms. Certainly the
'Cabaret* is there in its entirety, etc., but the pretty poems and the
Chinese softness have crept up in number and debilitated the tone.
What you object to in the 'Cabaret' is merely that it isn't bundled up
into slop, sugar and sentimentality, the underlying statement is very
humane and most moral. It simply says there is a certain form of life,
rather sordid, not gilded with tragedy any more than another, just as dull
as another, and possibly quite as innocent and innocuous, vide, my singers
in Venice. The thing the bourgeois will always hate is the fact that I make
the people real. I treat the dancers as human beings, not as 'symbols of
sin.' That is the crime and the ' obscenity.' E poi basta.
95: To Iris Barry
London, June
Dear Miss Barry: I am sending Bill 'The Cup,' 'The Daughter,' 'La
Coquette,' 'Biography,' 'Public Gardens,' 'Head Clerk,' 'Resentment,
I don't imagine he will be able to use them all, but he may as well suit
himself.
I make the following notes on other poems. 'Wet Morning': 'Too
tender to have become grimed' is a weak line. I am sorry about your holi-
days, also you should have a chance to see Fenollosa's big essay on verbs,
mostly on verbs. Heaven knows when I shall get it printed. He inveighs
against 'is,' wants transitive verbs. 'Become* is as weak as 'is.' Let the
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grime do something to the leaves. 'AH nouns come from verbs.' To prim-
itive man, a thing only is what it does. That is Fenollosa, but I think the
theory is a very good one for poets to go by.
Try the Hon. lover in vers libre, leave the rhymes in but let them come
where they will, and try leaving out the extra words (if they are extra).
Another variant would be to let the 'Us* stay on at the end of the line . . .
'upon.' The present line-form of the poem interferes very much with the
cadence, and gives a jolt where one oughtn't to be.
I think however you would find the weak spots and eliminate them if
you wrote out the poem without inversions and chucking the sonnet
idea.?????????
In 'Complaint' chuck 'Lo' and 'do you think they,' and then see if it
will form up into anything.
If you can send back these quite soon, I will send them also along to
Williams. Others is a harum scarum vers libre American product, chiefly
useful because it keeps 'Arriet,' (edtr. Poetry) from relapsing into the
Nineties.
Get loose whenever you can. I am sending 'The Daughter' in prefer-
ence to 'The Burial'; there isn't room for both in so small a bundle. I
don't think the other poems are quite good enough, or even good enough
without the 'quite.' 'In Two Months' has something in it.
Poor Mathews can't send you the unabridged Lustra yet as it ain't
printed. However, he has been persuaded into doing 200 copies un-
abridged for the elect and is allowed to have the rest of the edition almost
as modest as he likes — God knows, the whole thing is innocent enough,
but the poor man has had an awful week of it. — I suppose he has some
right to decide how he'll spend his money.
Monro is called up on Saturday so that stifled my shifting the book to
the Poetry Book Shop.
96: To Wyndham Lewis
London, 24 June
Dear Lewis: Judging the matter from the depths of my moderately com-
fortable arm chair, with the products of your brush, pen and the reproduc-
tory processes of the late publisher M. Goschen before me — or from free
seats at the opera — I can not see that the future of the arts demands that
you should be covered with military distinctions. It is equally obvious that
you should not be allowed to spill your gore in heathen and fiirrin places.
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I can only counsel you to endure your present ills with equanimity and
not to be too ready to see malice where mayhap none is intended. Nothing
exists without efficient cause. I can but ask you to contemplate the position
as deeply as you are able, and that without passion, and from all points of
view.
I should suggest that you spend your spare time with a note book, pre-
paring future compositions. If you like I will send a copy of Cathay so that
the colonel may be able to understand what is imagisme.
You didn't send me your address so I couldn't forward the Egoists,
which I send herewith.
Ed. Wad(sworth) went off yesterday for Lemnos. Don't think my
opening paragraphs unfeeling. I only ask you to consider all possible
interpretations of fact before you rush to an emotive conclusion. I trust
you will not think the remarks imply a personal bias on my part, but take
them rather as a point of view which may be held by persons other than
the writer.
I appear to be the only person of interest left in the world of art, Lon-
don. I have had a fine row over Lustra; as both Mathews and the printer
decline to go on with it on grounds of indecorum, I am getting 300 copies
printed almost unabridged at Mathews' expense and he is to print the rest
castrato. I have placed a Jap book with Macmillan, which is a peg up for
me. The enclosed circular, with the young damsel squirming neath the
jujube tree, is for your comfort. It will fill you, in the midst of your
afflictions, with a sense of your own dignity, and show how badly you are
needed here as a police force. However it is supposed to net me £20
which I bloody well need.
Met that pig M S at the U.S. consulate, by accident. He gave
me a taxi ride and a good cigarette. He said he would be very glad to con-
sider Tarr if I could get him a loan of the ms. Publication after the war.
Pinker also wanted to know if he might be allowed to vend the ms. As
he has been no use re Joyce's stuff, and I have done all the work, I don't
see that there is much use dealing with him. A. P. Watt fixed me up with
Macmillan in about a week. I don't know whether Tarr is in his line.
I have not heard from Quinn re receipt of pictures. He didn't seem keen
on paying for BLAST. He said he put up as much as I thought he ought to,
but I did not feel it would be wise to press the matter. I should want £100
to lubricate it.
I have now £25 of his which I have asked permission to pay over to you.
For the rest, don't be more irritating to your unfortunate 'superior'
officers than you find absolutely necessary to your peace of mind, or at
least try not to be.
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And don't get wroth with the Egoist for cutting the novel. The sooner
they get through serializing it the better, for then we can get it published
decently in vol. form.
And do try to penetrate the meaning of some of this note.
97: To Wyndham Lewis
London, 28 June
Dear Lewis: I still rather doubt whether you have got to the bottom of
my beastly letter. The information I received, or the assurances were very
definite and at the same time very general. They are hardly repeatable, and
as they tacitly forbade me to make any further more meticulous enquiry,
their substance was very much what I have already conveyed to you . . .
but in a sort of categorical and imperial tone.
That is to say 'The gods grant your prayers to the letter, neither more
nor less. . . . Cease from troubling the gods.'
I will have a copy of Cathay transmitted. I think I perhaps sympathize
more with your desire for advancement than the tone of my last note
might seem to show. I will wait for a fitting moment. Balfour between the
second and third acts did not seem to me to present a favourable target. It
is not his dept. and he would have been distinctly annoyed. He considered
that Shelley's best work was done in his youth, etc.
Your Colonel seems more contemporary in his interests. Besides you
see more of him.
I don't believe A. P. Watt would be any use re an article for the Dily
Mile. The last link with Goschen is either 'joined up' or evading the mili-
tary. God knows I don't know how to go at a thing of this sort (article
into D. Mail), I have never been able to get printed in any English paper
save the New Age and Egoist, and the more august reviews.
The £25 malheureusement is not yours till Q. instructs me to pay it
you, which won't be till he gets my letter saying I have recovered it for
him.
We know not any k Beckett, but D. thinks she may have a cousin who
does. She has never met the cousin.
I am bubbling at my Jap plays for MacM. If Q. is successful in N. Y. in
placing various things, I may get started on the brochure concerning your
glory. De Bossch&re is very much impressed with 'Timon,' says 'we have
nothing like it in Paris.' Not exactly news. Ma che.
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98: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 12 July
Dear Miss Weaver: A friend has persuaded Heinemann to read Joyce's
novel for himself. I have sent on my sole set of Egoists but Heinemann
says something is missing. Can you send him the complete ms. at once? to
his private house not to the office.
Don't mention my name, s.v.p.
George Moore has also been reading Joyce with approbation. We'll get
the thing started sometime.
99: To Iris Barry
London, lyjuly
Dear Miss Barry: I believe the Underground runs from here to Wimble-
don. At least I have a map with black lines on it, moving in that direction,
and I think it implies some form of conveyance. I will enquire with due
diligence. Also as to time consumed in transit. Place of arrival, whether
two or six stations in Wimbledon, etc.
As to marks of identification in case there be two males loose on the
platform??? Do you wish any, or will you trust purely to instinct? And I?
The 'Whitman Chesterton' definition is new to me. Manning in one of
his more envenomed moments once said something about 'More like
Khr-r-ist and the late James MacNeil Whistler every year.'
It would be a shame to pass in silence for the want of a boutonniere.
Perhaps a perfectly plain ebony staff, entirely out of keeping with the rest
of the costume will serve. Perfectly plain, straight, without any tin bands,
etc. at the top of it. Emphatically not a country weapon.
And what am I to look for?
100: To Wyndham Lewis
London, July
Dear Lewis: Quinn has sent the other £25, which I will forward to you as
soon as I hear that the address on this envelope is still the right one.
He now says he 'agrees with what' I say about Lewis. He expects to
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make an offer for certain other works 'ten or twelve or possibly i j.' That
is rather indefinite and I doubt if you could sue legally if he changed his
mind. However! ! ! ! Davies seems to be friendly. He offered to pay half
the freight when Montrose refused. Quinn naturally wouldn't let Davies do
it. Still it shows a sporting mind on the, or in the skull of Davies. Q. thinks,
or thought, in a former note that Davies might buy something.
The £25 which I now have for you finishes up the £150 of the agree-
ment with Q. for the Kermoos etc.
I have just returned from a dam'd week by the seawaves. Eliot present.
Eliot in local society. Fry, Canon, Lowes Dickinson, Hope Johnson
(none of whom I met). Had the ineffable pleasure of watching Fry's sylph-
like and lardlike length bobbing around in the muddy water off the pier.
Met Hueffer's brother-in-law on the plaisaunce. He said a shell had
burst near our friend and that he had had a nervous breakdown and was for
the present safe in a field hospital. Ford's brother Oliver is in the trenches.
(These small bits of news will doubtless cheer and enlighten you. Thank
God I have got back to the court-suburb.)
Ed Wad has arrived in Mudros. He has written me an epistle which I
will forward to you if you have not received one of your own.
P.S. Eliot, after mature deliberation, has discovered that Fry is 'an ass.'
Eliot has walked into his landlady's bedroom, 'quite by mistake,' said he
was looking for his wife. Landlady unconvinced. Wife believes in the
innocence of his intentions. Landlady sympathetic with wife. Landlady
spent Sunday placing flowers on her mother's grave. Landlady (in paren-
thesis) unmarried but under fifty.
Oh yes, called at Leicester gallery day before I went toward seawaves.
Phillips away ill, so accomplished nothing.
10 1 : To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 19 July
Dear Miss Weaver:. Will you please write at once accepting Huebsch
(? I think it is Huebsch) offer for the U.S.A. edition of Joyce. I will phone
Pinker at once also. I have just heard that Marshall has met with personal
calamities which, while they exonerate him wholly for his neglect to answer
letters, will make it impossible for him to go on with anything.
Don't write to Joyce for a few days, it will only give him needless
worry, and in a few days we may have a reply from Heinemann.
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102: To Iris Barry
London, <? 20) July
KOMPLEAT KULTURE : Schedule at 11 227 b 5 q/12/4685
The main thing being to have enmagazined some mass of fine literature
which hasn't been mauled over and vulgarized and preached as a virtue by
Carlyle, The Daily Mail, The Spectator ', The New Witness, or any other
proletariat of 'current opinion.' This mass of fine literature supposedly
saves one from getting swamped in contemporaneousness, and from think-
ing that things naturally or necessarily must or should be as they are, or
should change according to some patent schedule. Also should serve as a
model of style, or suggest possibilities of various sorts of perfection or
maximum attainment.
Greek seems to me a storehouse of wonderful rhythms, possibly im-
practicable rhythms. If you don't read it and if you can't read Latin trans-
lations from it, it can't be helped. Most English translations are hopeless.
The best are in prose.
MacKaiPs Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (Longman's,
Sreen, 2/) is worth reading.
There is a translation of Theocritus; I think Andrew Lang had some-
thing to do with it. Parts are readable and beautiful, especially the 'Wheel
of the Magic Spells.' (I think it is book IV, Idyl 2.)
I don't know that one can read any trans, of the Odyssey. Perhaps you
could read book XI. I have tried an adaptation in the 'Seafarer' metre, or
something like it, but I don't expect anyone to recognize the source very
quickly.
Certainly the so-called 'poetic' translations of Greek drama are wholly
'impossible.'
Wharton's 'Sappho' is the classic achievement. That you should find in
any decent library.
I am mailing you MacKaiPs Latin Literature. It is in many ways un-
trustworthy and vicious, but MacKail has the grace really to care for the
stuff he writes of. He is the poor dam'd soul of the late Walter Pater. Has
written some poems which I thought, fifteen years ago, were finely
chiselled. The translations from the Greek Anthology, mentioned above
are O.K. I owe him a few grudges. His praise of Tacitus moved me and I
ruined my English prose for five years, trying to write English as Tacitus
wrote Latin. Very bad. However, I may have learned something by it. I
now know that the genius of the two languages is not the same.
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Catullus, Propertius, Horace and Ovid are the people who matter.
Catullus most. Martial somewhat. Propertius for beautiful cadence,
though he uses only one metre. Horace you will not want for a long time.
I doubt if he is of any use save to the Latin scholar. I will explain some-
time viva voce.
Virgil is a second-rater, a Tennysonianized version of Homer. Catullus
has the intensity, and Ovid might teach one many things.
The 'Pervigilium Veneris* is beautiful; it is, however, MacKail's own
pet infant and he is a little disproportionately lyric over its beauty.
To the best of my knowledge there is no history of Greek poetry that is
worth ANYthing. They all go on gassing about the 'deathless voice' and
the 'Theban Eagle* as if Pindar wasn't the prize wind-bag of all ages.
The 'bass-drum,' etc.
This is a very short list but you'd better do at least this much 'classics'
to keep you steady and to keep your general notion of poetic development
more or less shapely. Possibly you can find a French prose translation of
Catullus and Propertius.
There was poetry in Egypt; I have seen a small book of interesting
translations and forgotten the name. Cathay will give you a hint of China,
and the ' Seafarer' on the Anglo-Saxon stuff. Then as MacKail says (p. 246)
nothing matters till Provence.
After Provence, Dante and Guido Cavalcanti in Italy.
Very possibly all this mediaeval stuff is very bad for one's style. I
don't know that you have time to live through it and???? to survive? (If I
have survived.)
The French of Villon is very difficult but you should have a copy of
Villon and not trust to Swinburne's translations (though they are very fine
in themselves); they are too luxurious and not hard enough. Not hard
enough, I mean, if one is to learn how to write. There are dull stretches in
the ' Testament ' but one has to dig out the fine things.
That is enough to keep you busy for a week or so. (Or for a year or so,
as the case may be.)
I have now got to shave, out of respect to the Chinese Minister.
I have read your things and will send critique when I have energy
enough to write it.
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103: To Iris Barry
London> 27 July
Dear Iris Barry: Of course I might have known you had most of Villon
by heart, but the bounds of even my knowledge are not without their
limit, and I was probably thinking more about the actual amount of
poetry worth knowing than about what you had or hadn't imbibed. We
therefore expand our apologies. You have read Villon, Ford Madox
HuefFer, the anthology Des Imagistes, nine verses by me, Omar Kayamm,
forty-five vols, on dissection of plants and animals, Zola, . . . enough of
this. So long as you don't adore Milton and Francis Thompson, it don't
matter.
Send on the B as soon as you like. Only you did give the chap
away when you made the chance remark that he feared plagiarism. It is as
bad as Cannell's being afraid to read anything for fear it would destroy his
'individuality.' !!!!!!!!!! Same weakness put the other side to. If a man
has anything it can't be either taken from him or rubbed away.
To continue the schedule.
I ought perhaps to emend what I said of Tacitus. So long as one writes
poetry and not prose, he may do one good by stirring up one's belief in
compression, compactness. The force of phrase, and of the single line.
After Villon one can, I think, skip everything down to Heine (whom
you have also committed to memory).
If you have nothing to do and are going in for lyricism and grace there
is a side line. Charles D'Orleans and the Pleiade. And Burns is worth study
as technique in song rhythms. But I don't think this is the main line.
Theophile Gautier is, I suppose, the next man who can write. Perfectly
plain statements like his 'Carmen est maigre' should teach one a number
of things. His early poems are many of them no further advanced than the
Nineties. Or to put it more fairly the English Nineties got about as far as
Gautier had got in 1830, and before he wrote ' L'Hippopotame.'
I don't quite know what to say about more recent French poets.
Whether they aren't too likely to set one to imitation of not the best sort I
am not sure. One ought to be strongly ballasted against them. I wonder if
my This Generation will be out before you get to them. Part of it is about
them. I'll give you a list of what's worthwhile, whenever you want it.
I think however you'd do yourself more good reading French
prose. ???? How much have you read? How much have you read
as a reader reading the story ? ? How much as artist analysing the method ?
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As I said Sunday, I suppose Flaubert's Trots Contes^ especially ' Coeur
Simple/ contain all that anyone knows about writing. Certainly one ought
to read the opening of the Chartreuse de Parme, and the first half or a
more than half of the Rouge et Noir. Shifting from Stendhal to Flaubert
suddenly you will see how much better Flaubert writes. And yet there is a
lot in Stendhal, a sort of solidity which Flaubert hasn't. A trust in the
thing more than the word. Which is the solid basis, i.e. the thing is the
basis. You have probably read the Education Sentimentale and Madame
Bovary.
I really think this little list and the short list I have already sent contains
die gist of the matter.
Sometime, certainly, you must have the souffle of contemporary French
poets.
Sometime before that I think you shall try a huge mass of Voltaire. I am
having him very late. Until I get to the end of the eighth fat vol. I shan't
know how much I shall want to hurl at you. Perhaps you should read all of
the Dictionnaire Philosophique. Presumably no other living woman will
have done so. One should always find a few things which ' no other living
person' has done, a few vast territories of print that you can have to your-
self and a few friends. They are a great defence against fools and against
the half-educated, and against dons of all sorts (open and disguised).
Yeats and I spent our last winter's months on Landor. There is a whole
culture. I don't quite know whether you will like much of it. Perhaps you
had better keep it till later. I think it might get a little in the way if you try
to gobble it now. It wants leisure and laziness. And he (Landor) isn't very
good as a poet save in a few places, where he is fine, damn fine, but he is no
use as a model. One has got constantly to be thinking that ' this is fine, but
this is not really the right way to do it.'
Your first job is to get the tools for your work. Later on you can stuff
yourself up with erudition as much or as little as suits you. At forty you
will probably thank god that there is something you haven't read.
And English poetry???? Ugh. Perhaps one shouldn't read it at all.
Chaucer has in him all that has ever got into English. And if you read
Chaucer you will probably (as I did though there is no reason why you
should be the same kind of imbecile) start writing archaic English, which
you shouldn't.
Everybody has been sloppily imitating the Elizabethans for so long that
I think they probably do one more harm than good. At any rate let 'em
alone.
Wordsworth is a dull sheep. He will do you no good though he was
better than some, and if there were no French prose and nothing worth
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19 1 6— aetat 30
reading one might learn a little about descriptions of nature from his end-
less maunderings.
Byron's technique is rotten.
I am not sure however that Crabbe's The Borough isn't worth reading.
It at least shows a gleam of sense. The man was trying to put down things
as they were. Apart from his tagging on morals, he is safe reading. He is in
some ways more modern than a lot of moderns. (He is antique neverthe-
less, but still he is perhaps worth an evening.)
In the main one should read French prose. When you want die modern
French poets I will send on the list of the intelligent ones.
You might learn Latin if it isn't too much trouble. If it is, I shall have to
read a few Latin and Greek things aloud to you, and possibly try to trans-
late 'em.
The value being that the Roman poets are the only ones we know of
who had approximately the same problems as we have. The metropolis,
the imperial posts to all corners of the known world. The enlightenments.
Even the Eighteenth Century is obsessed by the spectre of Catholicism,
the Index, the Inquisition. The Renaissance is interesting, but the poets
inferior. The Greeks had no world outside, no empire, metropolis, etc. etc.
It is best to go at the thing chronologically, otherwise one gets excited
over an imitation instead of over a creation or a discovery.
What about Browning? Does he entertain you? Is it possible to read
him after you have been reading Russian novels? I don't know, I read
him before I knew there were any Russian novels. I don't in the least think
there is any reason in particular why you should read him now. (Same
applies to Yeats. We've been flooded with sham Celticism for too long,
imitations of imitations of Yeats, and of the symbolistes ad infinitum. Soft
mushy edges.) Also Kipling has debased much of Browning's and Swin-
burne's coin. The hell is that one catches Browning's manner and manner-
isms. At least I've suffered the disease. There is no reason why you
should.
Some of the books I can mail you when you want 'em.
The whole art is divided into:
a. concision, or style, or saying what you mean in the fewest and clear-
est words.
b. the actual necessity for creating or constructing something; of pre-
senting an image, or enough images of concrete things arranged to
stir the reader.
Beyond these concrete objects named, one can make simple emotional
statements of fact, such as 'I am tired,' or simple credos like 'After death
there comes no other calamity.'
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I think there must be more, predominantly more, objects than state-
ments and conclusions, which latter are purely optional, not essential,
often superfluous and therefore bad.
Also one must have emotion or one's cadence and rhythms will be vapid
and without any interest.
It is as simple as the sculptor's direction: 'Take a chisel and cut away all
the stone you don't want.' ? ? ? ? No, it is a little better than that.
Don't hurry. I am not sending back your poems, because it is more
important you should take in fodder. You will get a lot more from the
general reading than from the inspection of a few minute and problem-
atical flaws in your last things.
Another time also I shall send you a great mass of work by some of our
coNtemporaries, as an awful example of all the what-not-to-do, and the
what-are-the-normal-results.
And if you can't find any decent translations of Catullus and Proper-
tius, I suppose I shall have to rig up something. At least we can talk them
over.
What else?
Oh well, perhaps you'd better send me a list of what prose writers
you've read since Zola, as a guide to my senescent feet. With little marks
saying whether or no you learned anything about writing by reading 'em.
When you do want Landor, sing out, and I'll try to name the parts
worth beginning on.
Spanish, nothing. Italian, Leopardi splendid, and the only author since
Dante who need trouble you, but not essential as a tool. Spain has one
good modern novelist, Galdos.
E basta.
104: To Iris Barry
London, August
Dear Iris Barry: Certainly send on the 3 page disclosure. Your poems are
on the other side of a floor I have just stained and it is too wet and sticky to
cross. You shall have them in a few days. I don't suppose you want that
list of contemporary French poets yet??? You can't have got to the end of
the other lists. Don't kill yourself, and remember it is August. Fm sorry
about the Wharton, only, as I remember it, he does give a decent and lucid
prose translation, wherewith one can follow the Greek.
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I prize the Greek more for the movement of the words, rhythm, per-
haps than for anything else. There is the POIKILOTHRON and then
Catullus, ' Collis O Heliconii,' and some Propertius, that one could do
worse than know by heart for the sake of knowing what rhythm really is.
And there is the gulph between TIS O SAPPHO ADIKEI, and Pindar's
big rhetorical drum TINA THEON, TIN' EROA, TINA D' ANDREA
KELADESOMEN, which one should get carefully fixed in the mind. I'll
explain viva voce if this metatype-phosed Greek is too unintelligible.
It is perhaps a sense of Latin that helps or seems to have helped people
to a sort of superexcellent neatness in writing English — something differ-
ent from French clarity. It may be merely from the care one takes in fol-
lowing the construction in an inflected language.
If you are panting for the Frenchmen, they are, with all sorts of quali-
fications and restrictions, R£my de Gourmont, De R^gnier (a very few
poems), Francis Jammes, Jules Romains, Chas. Vildrac, Tristan Cor-
BifeRE, Laurent Tailhade, Jules Laforgue, (dates all out of order), Rim-
baud. I'll make out a list of books, when you are really ready, also send
you V Effort Libre anthology of the younger men. There's no hurry
about returning the things you have.
When verse bores you or is too great a strain you are ever at liberty to
study De Maupassant, and to consider the excellent example which Flau-
bert set us in sitting on De M's head and making him write, and De M's
excellent example in doing what he was told. ... In describing such and
such a concierge in such and such a street so that Flaubert would recognize
which concierge when he next passed that way, etc. . . . Consider the wagon
full of young ladies in 'La Maison Tellier.'
That is the way to write poetry.
Macmillan has started setting up my Jap play book.
That imbecile Mathews will never finish with Lustra. I have just rec'd
four large cheques for vorticist pictures sold in America . . . and shall have
to turn them over to the artists !!!!!!!!!!
I think I did tell you to read the Rouge et Noir and the Chartreuse de
Parme for relaxation. If you haven't already done so.
I believe I am to have another batch of Chinese mss. turned over to me.
That's all the letter you can expect until you return one.
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io j : To Iris Barry
London, 24 August
Beautiful Evelyn Hope: By all means write your autobiography. I would
suggest that you do it as a series of letters to me. Under seal. It will be
much easier than trying to write it all at a sitting, and it will keep the style
simple and prevent your getting literary or attempting to make phrases
and paragraphs. 1 know when I tried to do a novel based more or less on
experience I wrote myself into a state of exhaustion doing five chapters at
one sitting, arose the next day, filled reams, and then stuck. You might
very likely run the same danger. If you do it as letters, it may get done. It
can perfectly well be published pseudonymously, if publishable, if long
enough, good enough, etc. This will relieve the great grandchildren of the
responsibility.
I believe my Russonymic would be Homerovitch.
I dare say the translation of the Odyssey was good if it was readable,
they mostly ain't. I don't however understand anyone's admiring Gilbert
Murray. Is his Hippolytus any good ?
You can send on the criticisms if you like. I should like to see them, if
it's not too much bother to send them, or if they aren't interlocked with
other matter not for my eyes. It will do me no harm to hear that 'the cat,
etc. . . .' Dulac has just lent me dear old Brantome who is full of much
worser scandals.
I forget what Stevenson says about Villon. I read it twelve years ago
and remember nothing but the 'Lodging for the Night,' not the Villon
essay. In the ' Lodging' I suppose S. is merely making a story. People have
tried to prove that V. was much more important a person in his day
(socially, etc.) than is generally supposed. I don't know that there is much
use trying to know such matters. I did a chapter on him in my Spirit of
Romance which contains what I thought about him in 1910. But there are
things much more worth your while reading.
I'll try to place your story if you've nothing better to do with it. Send
on the Chimera or a sample copy thereof.
I have spent the day with Wang Wei, eighth century Jules Laforgue
Chinois.
I will not say anything more about Stendhal, wait and see, or wait and
guess. I am not absolutely cracked in the matter, though I am not sur-
prised at your wondering: * what . . . etc'
Salammbd is dull and tedious. I am not sure that anyone can read it
144
19 1 6— aetat 30
through, but it is necessary at least to get stuck in the attempt. Otherwise
one doesn't know where one is with 'Herodias.' One receives no salutary
instruction.
Don't despair about Greek and Latin. There is no particular haste. I
have this day written my first two sentences in Chinese, on a post card to
Koum6.
If you must marry, do follow your excellent ancestress's precedent.
Marry and govern the state. Don't marry three servants and a villa in
Birmingham. It is not a short cut to leisure.
Really one don't need to know a language. One needs, damn well
needs, to know the few hundred words in the few really good poems that
any language has in it. It is better to know the POIKILOTHRON by
heart than to be able to read Thucydides without trouble (Fleet Street
muck that he is. The first journalist ... at least the first we have thrust
upon us.)
Interruption for food — but will send this as it is.
106: To Iris Barry
London, (August)
Dear Iris: I foresee that I shall have to read, or try to read the impossible
Murray, a full set of whose translations were sent to the war library some
months ago.
I am reading Brantome and I doubt if even the opportunities afforded
you in Birmingham will have produced anything capable of horrifying his
readers. The fine old robustness.
No, the Stendhal is not a personal application (/ recommended La
Chartreuse at the same time and you cant imagine I saw you on the field of
Waterloo, etc. etc.), you would have had it (Rouge et Noir) administered
just the same were you cockney or duchess. I wish you to consider the
relation of Stendhal, Flaubert, Maupassant (possibly Laforgue, but don't
bother about Laforgue now).
Certainly send on the plays, I am supposed to be meeting Knoblauch
next week. I have very little of my own to thrust upon him. I hear he is the
Gawd of the British theatre. Shall try him with Joyce, but if he is to be
harnessed I may as well have any stray bits of twine handy. (I don't of
course know that I can do anything, still if your stuff is any good at all I
can probably get it looked at.)
K 145
London
Of course I meant the Chimera with you in it.
Re the Murray. I am probably suspicious of Greek drama. People keep
on assuring me that it is excellent despite the fact that too many people
have praised it. Still there has been a lot of rhetoric spent on it. And I
admit the opening of Prometheus (iEschylus') is impressive. (Then the
play goes to pot.) Also I like the remarks about Xerxes making a mess of
[illegible] in another .^schylean play, forget the name. Some choruses
annoy me. Moralizing nonentities making remarks on the pleasures' of a
chaste hymeneal relation, etc., etc. Statements to the effect that Prudence is
always more discreet than rashness, and other such brilliant propositions.
I think it would probably be easier to fake a play by Sophocles than a
novel by Stendhal, apart from the versification. And even there one
mustn't be too gullible. Aristophanes parodies some of the tragic verse
very nicely, at least I believe so. I am too damd ignorant to talk intelli-
gently about the Greek drama. Still I mistrust it, donaferentes, etc.
There are fine lines in Phedre though it is perhaps a labour to read it,
and extremely difficult to understand how it was popular, except on the
supposition. . . . Oh, on a lot of damd suppositions.
I don't know when Lustra will be done, I suppose in September.
107: To Iris Barry
London, 29 August
Dear Iris: In the main the trouble with this lot is that there wasn't enough
urge behind it. I tried in vers libre to make a medium where the 'bard'
couldn't fake. Perhaps the game has come off. At least I don't think I can
be fooled all the time. Most of the shorter verses aren't sufficiently distin-
guished from the other little verse of the others who appear in Others.
'Influence' has too many inactive words to give an effect of efficiency.
'The Old House* has a germ, but a beastly Russian called Slobagob or
Sologub has done a whole novel, or at least a 30,000 word story and more
or less queered the pitch*
'Warning' is a bit too Whitman. Don't throw it away, but wait till you
get it better. Same with ' Old House.' — / — /
I have made some very rough scratches on one ms. I don't mean that I
have left a finished opusculus. It is only interrogation.
Returning to amical correspondence. Yes, I care somewhat for music
My first friend was a painter, male, now dead. 2nd a Pyanist, naturally 15
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19 1 6— aetat 30
years plus age£ que moi. That was in 'The States/ 1 entered London more
or less under her wing; I was even an impressario, I borrowed the Lyceo
Benedetto Marcello in Venice for a press recitation, in the absence of Wolf-
Ferrari, author of Das Nenes Leben and other operas, etc. Je connus the
London mondo musicale, at least the concert-hall, recital part of it. Later I
lived with Rummel several times for months at a stretch in Paris. He is a
good but no longer very productive young composer, dated alas by
Debussy. D. said that Rummel played his stuff better than he could. Both
K(itty) R. H(eyman> and Rummel are some musicians. My present pin-
nacle is sponged stalls at the Beecham opera. Malheureusement, I can't
offer them to my friends; the grip isn't strong enough. W.R. is in Paris,
K.R.H. back in the States.
Remains one clavichord, Dolmetsch's own handiwork — Dulac making
Arabian lutes.
P.S. Have looked at a bad trans, of Sophocles. Certainly the whole
CEdipus story is a darn silly lot of buncombe — used as a peg for some very
magnificent phrases. Superbly used.
I believe language has improved; that Latin is better than Greek and
French than Latin for everything save certain melodic effects — and we
don't know that the Greeks didn't ruin their stuff by rocking-horse read-
ing. Though I can't believe they did. At any rate, early Greek can be read
with wonderful music.
108: To Iris Barry
London, {September)
Dear Iris: The portrait is there to make junior typists clasp
their hands ecstatically. Or as Yeats says: ' That'll sell the book.' Perhaps
you will find the enclosed more compendious.
I think I told you of the effect of the Coburn photo 1 on my ex-landlady:
'Oh the first that ever did you justice.' Then at the door-way, deprecat-
ingly, 'Eh, I hope you won't be offended, sir, but, eh It-is-like-the-good-
man-of-Nazareth, isn't-it, sir? '
I am glad that the effect on the junior typist is satisfactory.
2. Re Burglars, I enclose the S{mart) S(et) slip. 2
1 Frontispiece to limited edition of Lustra, Elkin Mathews, 1916.
8 The Smart Set sent to contributors a slip listing impossible material, which
included: '7. — Stories about burglars or other rogues'.
M7
London
Exeunt:
I thought for the first few pages that you really had got a good thing.
But it seems to me that the real play is to have them all go out, (Aggie is
utterly unnecessary.) But the whole family should go out one by one
through sheer boredom with * the home.' There is an effect to be got from
that arrangement, a much longer play than you have made.
In fact I think any play to be stageable must be 1 5 or 20 pages of type-
script. At least Yeats made me lengthen a skit of mine before he would
take it for the Abbey. (Later rejected by the manager on the grounds that
its indecencies would cause a riot in Dublin.)
But I think there is a real piece of literature to be made if you send the
four of them out, father last, I should think, or perhaps daughter last; it
don't matter which, only it will change the nature of the satire. Still either
way could be fine.
Old lady's bed would have to be visible or near door into sitting room,
or dining room or whichever you call it. But she should have the finale all
to herself. Mon escient. A clear stage to die in.
One might even call it ' The Home.'
109: To Iris Barry
London^ 1 1 September
Ch£re Iris: I believe in everyone's having their heart's desire at the earliest
possible opportunity. If they are bad they die at once; they rot in a sort of
explosion. If they are good it does them no harm. If they are unusual they
'amazingly overcome it.'
Still, you might have told me his name was Reginald. Why should you
send me a poet named Reginald? If you had told me his name was Reginald
I should have known it was 'all off' from the beginning.
Reginald will be here in one hour and forty-five minutes. By that time
your letter will be safely placed in a drawer.
I should give the old lady a very short death. Either she can stagger to
door, or bed can be visible and make-up can do the rest. Let jaw drop.
Give her a line or two if necessary. Not a long drawn agony, a la cinema.
Sic: Old Female: 'I am dying of boredom.' Obit.
Re Lions: No, Yeats won't appreciate it. He will be vaguely conscious
of 'another' male in the room, but will forget it. Only after five years of
acquaintance does he learn to distinguish one member of the race from
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19 16— aetat 30
another member. He has not my Chaucerian busy-ness and curiosity con-
cerning minute variants in human personality.
If I despatch this instanter, the charwoman can mail it. And you shall
have another after Reginald has departed.
110: To Iris Barry
London, 22 September
Dear Iris: On the whole, it is all rubbish your going to a farm. The soul is
more than flesh, etc. You had much better come up to London. I am
writing to my treasured and unique ex-landlady to see if she has a room . . .
unless you have some better place to stay. I shall be back Wednesday. You
can come to tea, and be took out to see someone or other some evening,
and come in to meet someone else. God knows who is in London at the
moment, and divers circles are non-extant from war. Still you can put in
your spare time somehow.
The cheapest clean restaurant with a real cook is Bellotti's, Ristorante
Italiano (not Restaurant D'ltalie) 12 Old Compton St. I will send you
Mrs. Langley's address if I find she has a room.
Directions: for life in the capital. Not to use the competent and
defensive air. (In really Lofty circles an amiable imbecility is the current
form. . . . That you won't need in the monde d'art; a naive and placid re-
ceptivity should suffice.)
I believe being a bar maid would be no obstacle, but one would be
obliged to conceal the fact.
As for 'competent bearing and defence,' it is no use. People here
haven't the time; and anyone would be perfectly willing to be friendly.
Simply the capital is ' intime,' instantly 'intime,' scarcely ever familiar.
One talks aesthetics, literature, scandal about others, political intrigue
(war, for the present, though no stranger should introduce this last topic.)
All this is very bald, but am in hurry. General instructions:
Ask questions. Everyone likes to be asked questions.
Super-strategy:
Ask questions showing knowledge of or sane interest in something of
interest to interlocutor.
All of which you know quite well already. Yours, Polonius. .
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in: To H. L. Mencken
London, 27 September
Dear Mencken: Have signed one copy Dreiser protest and sent it to
Hersey with brief note on the ' Authors' League.'
Have sent other copy to The Egoist to be printed as soon as possible, in
the hope that it will reach more people than I have time to see or write to.
Will print it with blank for signature.
Still the country U.S.A. is hopeless and may as well go to hell its own
way. Hell is a place completely paved with Billy Sunday and Ellis.
Glad you are going to start a 'better' magazine. 'Better' is such a
bloody ambiguous word. Seriously I think what is wrong is simply that
neither England nor America have had an Eighteenth Century deist. I
don't believe superficial work is any good.
A society for the publication of selections of Voltaire, in five and ten
cent editions, translated, of course, into English, plus a general campaign
of education would be the best beginning.
Christianity has become a sort of Prussianism, and will have to go. All
the bloody moral attacks are based on superstition, religion, or whatever it
is to be called. It has its uses and is disarming, but it is too dangerous.
Religion is the root of all evil, or damn near all.
Patient plodding 'reformers' got you into the scrape, and it will take
patient, plodding, unfrivolous people like myself to free the country of the
curse.
It's all very well your doing the light fantastic, but you (you H.L.M.)
and a lot more of your friends will have to take art and freedom more
seriously before you are done with the matter. 'Hell' in the person of
Comstock's following, Sunday, and all the rest, will do you in, unless you
get some heavy artillery.
Perhaps the new magazine is intended to be a bit more 'weighty,' in
which case you are on the right road.
Am exceedingly worn out at the moment, so pardon lack of precision
and of glittering phrase in this epistle.
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19 1 6— aetat 31
112: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 14 November
Dear Miss Weaver: I have just received the enclosed from Joyce, Of
course I am ready to do an article or preface but I think I have written so
much about him that it would be much more advantageous to have some
other critic turned lpose.
I suggest that you write to Edward Marsh (10 Downing St., S.W.). He
will be flattered. His appreciation would reach a different and new circle of
people. He is in a position to do much more for Joyce than I can.
If he won't write a whole article, I suggest that you get a set of testi-
monials, about a paragraph long. From H. G. Wells, me, Marsh, George
Moore (if he will), Martin Seeker (??), anyone else you can.
I can hardly add anything to what I said in Drama. It was about the
strongest kind of statement one could make. You might quote from that
article. I am not trying to get out of doing a job, but I think these things
should be tried before the reader of the Egoist is required to hear any more
4 Me on Joyce/
Is the book getting printed in New York? ? ? ?
113: To Felix E. Schelling
London, 17 November
Dear Dr. Schelling: I keep on writing in Poetry, a distressful magazine
which does however print the few good poems written in our day along
with a great bundle of rubbish, ... the sentence is getting out of hand . . • I
keep on writing on the subject of fellowships for creation as a substitute
for, or an addition to, fellowships for research.
Now that there can be no longer any suspicion of my wanting the thing
for myself, I think it may be more use to write to you than to keep on
addressing that many-eared monster with no sense, the reading public.
It is true that H is a barbarian wanting to erect a pyramid to his
progenitor and wholly indifferent to the curricula or intellectual status
of the university, and S is a barbarous chemist interested in the
Y.M.C.A. and a parvenu system of morals,
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But then no American University has ever tried to be a centre of
thought. Pennsylvania would score if she were first to institute such a
fellowship. A fellowship given for creative ability regardless of whether
the man had any university degree whatsoever. The fellow would attend
lectures when he liked and then only, he would have no examinations for
the thought of them is poison in a man's ear, he can not hear through it.
The lute sounds like a cash register, and a cadence is weighed down with a
'job.'
I have in mind a couple of youngish men whose work will stay imper-
fect through lack of culture. Sandburg is a lumberjack who has taught
himself all that he knows. He is on the way toward simplicity. His energy
may for all one knows waste itself in an imperfect and imperfectable argot.
Johns is another case. A year in a library, with a few suggestions as to
reading and no worry about their rent might bring permanent good work
out of either of these men.
Masters is too old and instead of rewriting Spoon River he has gone off
into gas. Still a year's calm would do even him some good. But his ex-
penses are probably too heavy to make him a possible candidate.
I admit such an irregular student might be a dam'd nuisance, but he
might also be a stimulant.
Colum has I believe an endowment, but there is no library attached.
It might be a safeguard to make eligible only men who have not pre-
viously studied in the university.
The Wanderjahr was an excellent institution.
I don't know whether you will have time to consider this. It is perhaps
more in Weygandt's province ? ? ?
Dr. Child is an ideal companion for the young barbarian but hardly, I
think, the politician to get the thing done. Weygandt's interest in contem-
porary literature has however always appeared typical of himself and
America. That is to say he wrote to me for free copies of my books, just
after he had come into a comfortable inheritance and at a time when I was
working my own way on the edge of starvation. But there is no reason
why he should suspect that the thought of this fellowship comes from me.
I should have had to buy his free copies and it would have cost me a
dinner.
It is dull repetition to say that every other art has its endowed fellow-
ships. Poetry, which needs more than any other art the balance of study, is
without them. I say the balance of study because a sculptor or painter
with instinct can see a masterpiece almost instantly and a book takes time
to read. Music is difficult to decide on.
Oh well, I grow lengthy. Amities.
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1916— aetat 31
P.S. The English department might even apply its present fellowships
in this way now and again.
Rennert's last letter to me five years ago implied that the 'advancement
of learning* clause had come to be interpreted 'continue a professor', but
there was the university ('s) personal loathing (of) me behind that
decision.
*53
1917
114: To Kate Buss
London^ 4 January
Dear Miss Buss: Thanks for sending me the copy of your review.
The only error seems to be in supposing that ' Albatre' was in any way
influenced by Chinese stuff which I did not see until a year or two later.
The error is natural as Cathay appeared before Lustra, but the separate
poems in Lustra had mostly been written before the Chinese translations
were begun and had mostly been printed in periodicals either here or in
America. I think you will find all the verbal constructions of Cathay
already tried in ' Provincia Deserta.'
The subject is Chinese, the language of the translations is mine — I
think. At least if you compare the 'Song of the Bowmen* with the
English version of the same poem in Jennings' 'Shi King' Part II, 1-7
(p. 180) called 'Song of the Troops', or the 'Beautiful Toilet' with the
same poem in Giles' Chinese Literature, you will be able to gauge the
amount of effect the celestial Chinese has on the osseous head of an im-
becile or a philologist.
Omakitsu is the real modern — even Parisian— of VIII cent. China
115: To JohnQuinn
London^ 10 January
Dear John Quinn: The Dec. number of Seven Arts has just arrived. I
don't know whether I owe it to you or to the editor.
I have just sealed up Fenollosa's 'Essay on the Chinese Written Char-
acter,' to send to them. It is one of the most important essays of our time.
But they will probably reject it on the ground of its being exotic.
Fenollosa saw and anticipated a good deal of what has happened in art
(painting and poetry) during the last ten years, and his essay is basic for all
aesthetics, but I doubt if that will cut much ice.
IJ4
1917— aetat 31
Seven Arts looks to me as if it were riding for a fall. A fall between two
stools or two haystacks, or whatever it is things fall between.
All this desire for a compromise. Great Art is never popular to start
with. They (Seven Arts) want to be popular and good all at once ?????!!!!!
The stuff they complain of is precisely the stuff (American or otherwise)
that tries to please the 'better* public.
Their facts are flimsy. The 'cultured' man doesn't much read Jean
Christophe (he can't), nor yet Wells. He does read Henry James, but he
reads him with rigorous selection.
Nothing but ignorance can refer to the 'troubadours' as having pro-
duced popular art. If ever an art was made for a few highly cultivated
people it was the troubadour poetry of Provence.
The Greek populace was paid to attend the great Greek tragedies, and
it damn well wouldn't have gone otherwise, or if there had been a cinema.
Shakespeare was 'Lord Somebody's players,' and the Elizabethan
drama, as distinct from the long defunct religious plays, was a court affair.
Greek art is about as fine an example of uninterrupted decadence as
one could want, and its decay keeps pace with the advance of popular
power.
Seven Arts don't seem to me much better than The Egoist, though you
needn't say so publicly, as I want the Fenollosa essay published. (Natur-
ally, I could use it in The Egoist, but I want to be paid for it. It's damn well
worth it.) China is fundamental, Japan is not. Japan is a special interest,
like Provence, or 12- 13th Century Italy (apart from Dante). I don't mean
to say there aren't interesting things in Fenollosa's Japanese stuff (or fine
things, like the end of Kagekiyo, which is, I think, 'Homeric'). But China
is solid. One can't go back of the 'Exile's Letter,' or the 'Song of the
Bowmen,' or the ' North Gate.'
Yeats is still hustling about the Lane picture bequest.
116: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 22 January
Dear Miss Weaver: The limerick Joyce asked me to use was my limerick
on him, a very poor bit of doggerel, rhyming Joyce with 'purse' (the
latter pronounced 'poice' in the manner of the N.Y. Bowery). I don't
think his request was serious, if it was so, it (was) merely a bit of amia-
bility on his part. At any rate the limerick won't fit in a serious manifesto.
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His limerick on me shows that an amiable feeling exists between author
and reviewer, and that also would weaken the force of my note.
I don't think you are right about The Nation and Athenaeum, for the
following reasons :
i. The reviewing on The Nation has more and more fallen into the con-
trol of a gang of Irish, presumably S 's gang, and he has already
attacked Joyce's prose, rather sneeringly, and will go on doing so,
presumably (jealousy).
The anonymous reviewer is usually cowardly, also I have before now
procured civility by direct attack. Again a direct attack may make the head
of a paper look up the reviews which cause it, and smack the reviewer into
order. If Wells reviews the book, the two latter effects will be intensified.
2. The Athenaeum is anything but ' well-established.' It is so groggy that
it 'reorganizes* about every five months. It is being held up by a silly
' pigeon' back from Egypt after forty years in the desert. It has appealed for
funds to its contributors, and talked about democratic control of its
opinion. Any kick at it may help toward its extinction, which is devoutly
to be hoped for.
3. 1 certainly don't want to include the virtuous by such a phrase as
'well-established' journals.
If, however, you don't want to name names, I could consent to
' attacks from a few sheltered, and therefore courageous, anonymities '
It is well to forestall attack, and the nasty Catholics like the
M and T stye are bound to attack because Joyce so allmightily
wipes the floor with the 'Whore of Babylon' in that chapter on the
long sermon.- — / — /
117: To John Quinn
London, The Evening of the 24th day January
Dear John Quinn: I am glad you really enjoyed Lustra and aren't going
on with it merely out of esprit de corps.
I have always wanted to write 'poetry' that a grown man could read
without groans of ennui, or without having to have it cooed into his ear by
a flapper.
Re your troubles with S., I send my commiserations and am almost
moved to offer myself as a substitute. Ignorant as Ham but capable of con-
secutive work and of putting together an argument.
Besides, one might live in America if one had a reputable job and were
156
1 9 17— aetat 31
not that lowest of God's creatures: a man with an ambition to write well
trying to live by his pen in the Eunited States.
And one would be free from editors. If I ever do come to America I
would rather do something of the sort than lead the dog's life of a Tagore-
as-at-present, or Noyes-teaing-at-Princeton, let alone the humbler roles in
the business.
Re Washington Square imitation Quartier Latin, a chap named Bruno
occasionally sends me a 'weekly* when he isn't grouched by my lack of
admiration for it. I judge that is the superior- top-kurrust of the crowd you
mean, and can get a perspective.
I am glad you liked my progenitors. They certainly had a good time
seeing you and the collection. You can be quite sure Dad will descend
upon you whenever he gets to New York again.
Yes, I got your Casement article, two copies. I didn't think your argu-
ment quite held together in some places, or that you on the bench would
have given verdict to a barrister who had made it.
I intended to make a detailed analysis of it, and then was interrupted. I
think by getting a rush order to translate a libretto at once (very lucky for
me that I did get an order to do something). Beecham is a good fellow and
paid in guineas, not pounds as proposed. Also he is intelligent, apart from
being the only man in England who can conduct an orchestra.
People usually misinterpret him. In my long talk with him I discovered
the cause, i.e. I caught him thinking. By gawd, a musician thinking,
straight off his own bat.
At any rate, the Casement matter was all over by the time I got back to
your article. Then came proofs of Noh, and then work on a new long poem
(really long, endless, leviathanic).
No, Joyce hasn't a pension. He had a grant of £100 from the last
government. One lump sum, not a hardy annual. I don't know whether
the present regime will be as generous. However, his books are now out,
and a start is made.
I think justice will be done to MacNeill as soon as the war is over, if not
before. Certainly as soon as people have time and can think calmly once
more. I am glad Spring-Rice is with you in this.
Don't worry over This Generation, and for God's sake, don't spend
money on it.
If there is any spending it would be much more fun to spend it on illus-
trations (even in colour) for the book on Lewis.
I don't believe there's much 'oil' of lucre in Pisistratan sculpture, but
the blighted Greeks did a few things before Phidias, and it would be
amusing to point out Greek art as one continuous decadence. The Mosco-
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phoros (alias, 'The chap with the calf) is, I think, a good job (possibly
better than Yakob).
My wife, trying to find a formula of words, said, 'No . . . ah . . . no,
Dulac isn't an artist.'
I: 'What?'
She: * No, he's something else, he is different' (that means different from
Lewis, me, Gaudier, Eliot, etc.). 'He is a . . . dilettante.'
Which is probably the answer. He is a nice chap to dine with and pro-
bably better at conversation or anything else than at art.
Don't worry about Lewis not understanding mild delay. Everything
turned out all right.
The vortescope isn't a cinema. It is an attachment to enable a photo-
grapher to do sham Picassos. That sarcastic definition probably covers the
ground. A chap named Mountsier has seen the stuff and is doing an article
on it, also on Lewis and me and Coburn. He is going to N.Y. — on the Sun,
I think.
The show of Coburn's results comes off here in Feb. He and I are to
jaw about abstraction in photography and in art, and old G.B.S. has pro-
mised to come out and perhaps chip into the jawing. The vortographs are
perhaps as interesting as Wadsworth's woodcuts, perhaps not quite as
interesting.
At any rate, it will serve to upset the muckers who are already crowing
about the death of vorticism.
It, the vortescope, will manage any arrangement of purely abstract
forms. The present machine happens to be rectilinear, but I can make one
that will do any sort of curve, quite easily.
It ought to save a lot of waste experiment on plane compositions, such
as Lewis' 'Plan of War,' or the Wadsworth woodcuts. Certainly it is as
good as the bad imitators — Atkinson, and possibly some Picabia — and
might serve to finish them off, leaving Lewis and Picasso more clearly
defined.
Thanks again for fixing up things with Knopf.
Will say nothing about periodical until I get your next letter, save that
it is very good of you to go on being interested after all my varied and
divergent propositions.
Am glad the vorticist exhibit is really open. But this letter is already
long enough, so I won't expatiate. Regards to Yeats Sr. and remembrances
to Brodzky, and thanks again to you.
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1917— aetat 31
118: To Iris Barry
London, 25 January
Dear Iris: Good. Only you omit the most important detail, namely price
of said room with bawth. Within reach of Whitehall plus bath spells
Chelsea, the riverboard of Chelsea rich with memories of. . . .
I find a bath can be dispensed with provided one have a geyser that will
make the liquid for dumpable detached bath really hot. Whereas the damp
coolish hot bath of a boarding house is disgusting.
A few weeks ago I found a studio with bath, for I think £40 per year,
but naturally unfurnished, and probably you would have to take it for
three years, and probably it is already gobbled.
Wisdom consists in getting a room cheap and having spare cash to em-
bellish it, add gas conveniences, etc., which are paid once and for all and
not a constant drain.
Alas, I was in Chelsea but yesterday. Had you written 24 hours earlier I
might have enquired.
I had better get you a furnished room at 8 (eight) shillings a week, in the
centre of the part of Chelsea where you will probably find what you really
want (very possibly unfurnished).
Let me know exact or probable date of your arrival as soon as you
know it.
Chelsea is a bit nearer Whitehall than I am here, and it (Chelsea) is not
too disgustingly far from here. You might be provided with some amiable
neighbors there, if discretion be exercised.
Now for the moving letter.
You do not poetize because you are suffering from your first attack of
* style' or 'rush of critical sense to the heart/ At 18 1 always thought each
poem the last.
What is your attitude toward Mr. Pound? 'All things are possible to
labour.'
Tagore got the Nobel Prize because, after the cleverest boom of our
day, after the fiat of the omnipotent literati of distinction, he lapsed into
religion and optimism and was boomed by the pious non-conformists.
Also because it got the Swedish Academy out of the difficulty of deciding
between European writers whose claims appeared to conflict. Sic. Hardy
or Henry James?
Tagore obviously was unique in the known modern Orient. And then,
the right people suggested him. And Sweeden is Sweeden. It was also a
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damn good smack for the British Academic Committee, who had turned
down Tagore (on account of his biscuit complexion) and who elected in
his stead to their august corpse, Alice Meynell and Dean Inge.
Therefore his Nobel Prize gave pleasure unto the elect.
Massenet was finished God knows when. I know that I was
paid, guineas not pounds as proposed, on Jan ist and that I am for
the moment solvent. Laus Deo. I think that answers the list of
questions????
119: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 30 January
Dear Miss Weaver: I will write to Archer and Brock, not later than
tomorrow. You can then send the books to The Times (not to Brock); but
to Archer direct, s.v.p.
Do warn Wells that there is an Irish vendetta in the senile Nation, and
tell him there is no reason why Joyce should be dragged into it. Joyce has
never laid eyes on me and has nothing to do with my personal feuds.
I will speak to Granville, probably today. Does he send you an ex-
change copy? It may have slipped his mind.
Following emendations in article. Please see that revises are correct.
p. 2. Egoist turns publisher and produced A Portrait . . .
p. 9. Violent attacks from several sheltered and therefore courageous
anonymities. When you tell . . .
p. io. Now, despite the jobbing of bigots and their sectarian publishing
houses, and despite the Fly-Fishers . . .
I am afraid Eliot has split with The Westminster, and De Bossch^re also.
However, I will see.
1 20: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? January)
Dear M.C.A.: The Little Review is perhaps temperamentally closer to
what I want done ? ? ? ? ? ?
Definitely then:
I want an 'official organ' (vile phrase). I mean I want a place where I
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and T. S. Eliot can appear once a month (or once an 'issue') and where
Joyce can appear when he likes, and where Wyndham Lewis can appear if
he comes back from the war.
Definitely a place for our regular appearance and where our friends
and readers (what few of 'em there are), can look with assurance of finding
us.
I don't know quite how much your pages carry. I don't want to swamp
you.
I must have a steady place for my best stuff (apart from original poetry,
which must go to Poetry unless my guarantor is to double his offer. Even
so I oughtn't to desert Poetry merely because of convenience.
(I have only three quarrels with them: Their idiotic fuss over christian-
izing all poems they print, their concessions to local pudibundery, and that
infamous remark of Whitman's about poets needing an audience.)
As to policy, I don't think I am particularly propagandist. I have issued
a few statements of fact, labelled two schools and there has been a lot of
jaw about 'em. But an examination of files will show that I have done very
little preachy writing.
A monthly should keep some tab on the few interesting books that DO
appear in London and Paris.
I should count on Eliot a good deal for such current criticism and appre-
ciation. He is in touch with various papers here and sees what is going on.
I don't know how much Joyce would send in. He is working on another
novel.
Lewis is not to be counted on, now; by the grace of God he may come
back in due season.
The young stuff here that hasn't a home would be an occasional poem
from Rodker or Iris Barry and the unknown.
The rest are clustered to The Egoist. I got Aldington that job several
years ago. He hasn't done quite as well as I expected, but he was very
young. H.D. is all right, but shouldn't write criticism. The Lawrence-
Lowell-Flint-Cournos contingent give me no active pleasure. Fletcher is
all right now and again, but too diffuse in the intervals.
You advertise 'new Hellenism.' It's all right if you mean humanism,
Pico's De Dignitate, the Odyssey ', the Moscophoros. Not so good if you
mean Alexandria, and worse if you mean the Munich-sham-Greek
'Hellas' with a good swabian brogue.
Confucianism is not propagandist, and polytheism would only be mis-
understood, so I shan't offer any or much competition on these lines.
(Perhaps an essay on Confucius? On approval.)
This is to be printed straight off. (Bar of course libel, and the usual
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thing, or the printers' refusing absolutely to set it up, because of its
inflammability.
If there happens to be more copy the excess would be submitted to you
as any other contribution. No hard feelings if you chuck it.
I think we might criticize each other's selections in confidence with
some freedom and directness????
(As you like ... it is sometimes amusing ... I don't insist . . .)
121 : To Alice Corbin Henderson
London, March
Dear A.C.H.: The only thing I can see for strengthening the
prose section of Poetry is a series of essays on French poets unknown to
The Atlantic Monthly and the Great Generation of Pimps, beginning with
Gilder and ending with the friends of H. W. Mabie.
Amy has not exhausted the subject. Poetry could quite well do with
essays on Laforgue, Corbtere, Tailhade, possibly Rimbaud, Jammes, pos-
sibly Elskamp, possibly a reminder of Mallarm6, Samain, H£redia. I would
suggest that a series of this sort by me, Eliot, and De Bosschire would at
least keep out a certain amount of slop from the prose section.
I believe you get the Egoist. De B. has had an enormous essay on me
running through three numbers, Jan., Feb., and March still to come.
He has also what he calls a ' Portrait' of me.
Even tho H. has not yet printed his poems, I shall suggest his sending
this along. If she don't use me in April, she might make a number of my
long poem, his poem or poems, and this 'portrait.' It and the essay in The
Egoist make the first part of a book on contemporary English poets which
he will publish in France after the war. The Egoist essay might be noted in
Poetry 9 s notes by way of annoying the profane. It quotes Sandburg and is
altogether the most lengthy treatment I have yet had from any critic. . . •
Not that it is to be accepted as gospel, but lest the forces of darkness crow
and cackle too loudly.
I can't stir up De B. and Eliot to do the French essays until I know that
they are wanted and that they will appear one a month in a regular series.
They'd make a good solid series, and also be a change. About
1500 words each, and £3 as REmuneration.
The series ought to be announced. It should help sales if announced,
otherwise it won't, as sales proceed from expectation.
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My prose now lying in the office ought to be cleared up also. Lump it all
into two lots, one on Davies and the other as * Notes by E.P.' That'll clear
the deck, get one ready to do something 'in reply to the noble effort of the
60 guarantors/ One ought to make a bit of a spurt in reply to 'em.
122: To John Quinn
London, iS April
Dear Quinn: The New Republic has come. The title 'Green Sickness' and
the paragraph on 'mortal sin' seem to me the two back-handers in the
thing. Perhaps in less degree the phrasing, 'never even thought of plot or
importance of consulting the reader.'
This latter paragraph and the one on Wells give Hackett away and
should not harm Joyce.
The title is a dig. Some of the other things you have marked don't seem
to me vicious. His saying that the novel is 'unpleasant' is balanced by the
next paragraph which says it has beauty and intensity (which is more than
most reviewers would do, especially if they were disappointed novelists
instead of being disappointees in other walks of litterchure).
I don't much like the opening sentence. However, the tribe of Gosse all
think the public has to be apologized to for the existence of genius in any
form.
I hope you aren't going to be offended by my remarks on artists and
patrons in the editorial I sent direct to Miss Anderson. I was wroth with
the editorial in Poetry on the same topic. H. Monroe seems to think that if
her Chicago widows and spinsters will only shell out she can turn her gang
of free-versers into geniuses all of a onceness. Hence my remarks on the
inability of patrons to create artists. I may have phrased it a bit crudely.
But I think what I said is so, and that if the words are examined closely the
meaning holds good.
I am rereading your article on Joyce. Do send copies to official circles.
Possibly to the English ambassador in Washington. It ought to do more
good than anything else I have seen on Joyce. Good also to me, The
Egoist, Picasso, etc.
Re what you say of the book's being most intelligible to Irish Catholics,
did I write you that a female married to a Belgian said the whole thing was
just as true of Belgium as of Ireland (with, of course, necessary substitu-
tions in the matter of Parnell, etc.) ?
I am neither Irish nor Catholic, but I have had more mediaeval contact
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than most, through Dante and my Provengal. I have read a nth Century
Provenjal sermon about hell — same model as the one in The Portrait,
same old hoax.
I don't put myself up as a sample of how the book will strike most
people. But I do think Joyce has done his job so well and so thoroughly
that he conveys the milieu of the book, and that an Irish Catholic with local
knowlege has very little advantage over the outsider with good grounding
in literature when it comes to understanding The Portrait.
(That sentence is written nearly as badly as some of Hackett's.)
This may not be so. My uncle-in-law couldn't understand parts of the
conversation, or at least found them difficult. And he is extremely well
read. It may be my having read Dante and a few paragraphs of Richard St.
Victor, and Guido Cavalcanti, that makes me so much readier to take in
the novel than some other people seem to be.
I wonder if he has read Balzac many times. I read about a dozen books
of Balzac's ten years ago, but I can't read him now.
I also wonder if he has read Flaubert and the de Goncourts, or if his
hardness isn't a direct development from the love of hardness bred by
reading Dante, or possibly in his case, Aquinas. (I have not read Aquinas,
but I have looked through a good book of scholastic logic, by something-
Agricola.)
His hardness is more like La Jille Elisa than anything of Balzac's, I
think.
I enclose bibliography. I have put in the dates of a few critical articles —
'pure matter of literary history.' I have taken damn small part in the cur-
rent muck concerning vers libre. I don't think an unessential matter of that
sort would have been raised to the pitch of a Martin Luther- John Calvin
church-schism but for the crass ignorance of magazine editors, critics and
publishers at the time I began writing. Ignorant opposition caused a stop-
page, and now follows an inundation. I think the simple table of dates may
tell the story in a quiet way, if anyone wants to hear it. It is better than
writing diatribes against the unstable.
Later. I have compiled the bibliography. It is in a beastly mess, but let
Knopf straighten it out or retype it.
I enclose another note from Joyce which has just come. I didn't tell him
the magazine was settled but only that there was good hope, and asked him
to send me a note on chance. Please have Miss Anderson print either his
brief note, or a notice saying he has written to say that he will collaborate
at the earliest opportunity.
I think with Yeats' poems, Lewis, Joyce, Eliot, and the chance of a few
*young/ the Little Review is worth going on with.
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1917 — aetat 31
I have added J.B.Y.'s letters to the bibliography. May as well note it,
though my introduction is only a page. Still it may sell a few copies for
Cuala.
Perhaps you'll be good enough to forward Joyce's question about his
eyes to Gould, with the odier data I sent you. That is, if Gould is still
alive. Vide the end of Joyce's long letter enclosed.
More later.
123: To Harriet Monroe
London, 24 April
Dear H.M.: At last a letter from you. I am sorry you have been laid up,
glad you are through with it. Glad to hear A.C.H. is better and also that
something was done for her last autumn.
As to poem, 1 string it out into three numbers if that's the best you can
do. Price named for magazine rights is satisfactory. Only for gawd's sake
send it along as soon as possible.
Let us hope you may get over your dislike of the poem by the time the
last of it is printed, you disliked 'Contemporania' and even the first of
Frost himself, and you loathed and detested Eliot. ' Contemporania' didn't
exactly wreck the magazine. You have even put some of them into the
anthology.
It is disgusting of Mathews not to have sent you Lustra, but it may have
been sunk.
You can't expect me to keep in touch with the magazine unless you
write more often than once in six months. Since Alice went to New
Mexico I have been wholly, or almost wholly cut off.
124: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (ca. May)
Ch£re M.: All right !
Only don't go wrong about Quinn. Quinn made me mad the first
time I saw him (1910). I came back on him four years later, and since then
I have spent a good deal of his money. His name does not spell Tight-
wad. The £1 50 is my figure, not his.
1 * Three Cantos', published June, July, and August 1917.
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I am not looking for a soft job, at least not in that way. Quinn is not a
rich man in the American sense of the word. He has what he makes month
by month, and most of it goes to the arts. I know part of what he does, and
I know somewhat of how he does it. . . . Quinn wanted me to take £ 120
a year for myself in connection with The Egoist a year or so ago.
The point is that if 1 accept more than I need I at once become a
sponger, and I at once lose my integrity. By doing the job for the absolute
minimum I remain respectable and when I see something I want I can ask
for it. I mean to say, as things stand I can ask for money when Joyce
finishes his next novel or if HuefFer ever gets his raz/book finished.
If I began by blowing 1 500 dollars and did no more than I shall now do
with 750 1 should feel a mucker and there would be nothing ahead.
My whole position and the whole backing up of my statement that the
artist is 'almost* independent goes with doing the thing as nearly as pos-
sible without 'money.'
I think also Quinn may know more than you think. He works very hard
and I think rather excitedly and his talk after hours may not have the pre-
cision a sentence would have if a man had nothing to do but write art
criticism and if he took a day to a paragraph.
At any rate, take a bit more time before you finally make up your mind.
I wish there were one or two more like him.
I don't know whether his talk about art is like all American talk about
art, but his act is a damn sight different.
Don't insist on his toning down his enthusiasms to a given foot rule.
Old Yeats (J.B.) describes Q. as 'the kindest, most generous, most
irascible' of men. I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't
irascible.
Quinn says a number of nice things about both of you, and admires
your courage and nerve and energy. This is not a grouch but a prayer. . . .
I don't believe anybody else will do half or a tenth as much for us, or give
us so many chances to make good after a slip.
The other thing is not to let J<ane) H(eap> cheek Quinn too much. I
think he likes you both. But still I think it would be better if you saw him,
than that she should. If they meet, whatever she may think of his artistic
judgment, do let her remember that some of the best living artists think a
great deal of it. Not merely because he buys their stuff.
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125: To Edgar Jepson
London, 29 May
Dear Jepson: The damblasted trouble is that it is a magazine story; that it
does not in every line on the magazine-reader, on the world
that makes Harrison and The English Review possible.
If I am to make anything of a 32 page minute rag of a paper that looks
like nothing at all, I cannot possibly compete with larger magazines on
their own ground, — I have got to use stuff and I think exclusively stuff
that in no way suggests the contents or existence of any other magazine;
stuff that couldn't possibly appear, that couldn't think of appearing else-
where.
My corner of the paper is BLAST, but BLAST coveted with ice, with
a literary and reserved camouflage (I mean, that's what I want: a classic
and impeccable exterior: enunciated with an exquisite polite-
ness. BLAST in which the exuberance has given place to external deco-
rum of phrase).
Seccombe, Nicoll, The Authors' Club, all the inhabited by
these animals and their American shadows, impeccably shattered, anni-
hilated.
I should undoubtedly poison the lot were we not educated or devis-
cerated beyond that order of procedure. I stumble through a great number
of words in trying to say, 'your story is not satiric, but human and tragic'
and that satire is such a cool and quiet word that it don't in the least ex-
press the quality of bitterness that I want, the peculiar kind of contempt
for contemporary mentality, for the reading public, for the way the 'world
ofletters'goeson.
Possibly a hyper-aesthesia, but I find no other word but ' ';
the sensation of being thrust head downward up to chin into the mire of an
open priwy which comes upon me at the mention of the house of Murray,
the Bookman, Seccombe, Chesterton, the whole order of these things.
New Statesman conveys a dryer, a more dusty feeling.
Certain people have felt this sort of thing about * life,' I feel it about con-
temporary Mitterchure,' gensdelettres, etc.
Poetry gets out of reach of the stench, andjsatire is a quick-lime, or
ammonia which cuts through it.
If I am to do anything with my half magazinette I have got to concen-
trate; at least for a while, I can use nothing which is not definitely an insult
to the public-library, the general-reader, the weekly press.
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On the practical side I have enough cash to pay myself, Eliot and Lewis
an extremely small monthly screw. I have so little beyond that, that it is
ludicrous to say how little. The first six months of it are gone already.
I think I could get you more for your story from Mencken, and get it
quicker. At least I should suggest trying that if you permit or approve.
After I have definitely established the tone (how the hell does one escape
that cliche), the chemical pungency of the L.R. y I may be able to think
about general contributions.
Damn it all I want the author talking to the one most intelligent person
he knows, and not accepting any current form, form of story, form of
anything. Hang it all, how the hell does one say what Fm trying to get at.
I want it all 'untanned alligator skin,' and no 'make love's and 'dear
angel's.
'Women's dresses, music, champagne' ne me disent rien.
126: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? June)
Dear editor: The one use of a man's knowing the classics is to prevent
him from imitating the false classics.
You read Catullus to prevent yourself from being poisoned by the lies
of pundits; you read Propertius to purge yourself of the greasy sediments
of lecture courses on 'American Literature,' on 'English Literature from
Dryden to Addison,' you (in extreme cases) read Arnaut Daniel so as not
to be over-awed by a local editor who faces you with a condemnation in
the phrase ' paucity of rhyme.'
The classics, 'ancient and modern,' are precisely the acids to gnaw
through the thongs and bulls-hides with which we are tied by our school-
masters.
They are the antiseptics. They are almost the only antiseptics against
the contagious imbecility of mankind.
I can conceive an intelligence strong enough to exist without them, but
I can not recall having met an incarnation of such intelligence. Some does
better and some does worse.
The strength of Picasso is largely in his having chewed through and
chewed up a great mass of classicism; which, for example, the lesser
cubists, and the flabby cubists have not.
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127: To Margaret C. Anderson
London , (? August)
Dear M.C.A.: Bodenheim has been on the grump ever since I was forced
to tell him that I could not perceive much originality in his work. Neither
is there. He was commendable in the first place because he was trying to
take more care of his actual wording than either Masters or Sandburg. In
verse having no very marked or seductive cadence, no rhyme, no qualita-
tive measure, the actual language must be fairly near to perfection.
Also . . . Bodenheim distorts my words. 1 said nothing against these
poets save that they hadn't opened up anything new during the past
three years. Which, damn it, they haven't. I set my period at three years
(definitely and deliberately). Thus H.D.'s early work, Aldington's, and
Williams' * Postlude' do not come up for comparison.
I don't think any of these people have gone on; have invented much
since the first Des Imagistes anthology. H.D. has done work as good. She
has also (under I suppose the flow-contamination of Amy and Fletcher)
let loose dilutations and repetitions, so that she has spoiled the 'few but
perfect' position which she might have held on to.
Anyhow Eliot has thought of things I had not thought of, and I'm
damned if many of the others have done so. Inventive, creative, or what
not.
And The Dial, Oh gosh, slosh, tosh, the dial, d,i,a,l, dial. Dial — the
stationary part of a clock or other chronometer. And the New Republic,
desiccated, stodgied copy of the desiccated New Statesman. Why 'new,'
why this passion for 'newness' always confined to the title? Put there pre-
sumably to keep it out of the way. Not that one desires newness so awfully
awfully, goodness would suffice.
128: To H. L. Mencken
London, 12 August
Dear Mencken: I sent a letter to Hatteras 1 last week, in your care, asking
if he had any stuff too wild for the S.S. I have been a bit slow getting the
Little Review off the mark, but perhaps not so slow as would at first sight
1 A pseudonym of Mencken.
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appear, as stuff has to leave here so infernally long before it gets into print
inN.Y.
Apart from Yeats, I have a play by Lady Gregory, and one from
Symons (not so valuable). Joyce has been in hospital ever since we started
so he has been no use. But I have now got Hueffer's best ms. for 191 8, and
a topping story from Lewis for Dec.
I wonder if you have any stuff of your own too unComstockian for
your own readers. And what about Wright?
I hope old Hatteras has impractical moments.
I suppose an exchange of ads at this stage of the game would be a pure
present on your part. Still a statement that ' the 5.5. is the only magazine,
American or otherwise, that ever lost 50,000 subscribers in attempting to
give America better literature than she wanted* might fetch a few of our
rare readers (who on the other hand probably read you (tacitly and un-
admittedly in the midst of Browning societies) already).
I suppose Benefield is written out, or that anything he does would fit
you perfectly well ?
Hope you enjoyed Eliot in our July number. That unitarian upbringing
has not been wasted.
(How many of your polysyllabic authors write under their own
names???? There can't be so many patristocratic cognomens in Man-
hattan.)
At any rate, if there is impractical stuff, I want it.
129: To John Quinn
London, 21 August
Nothing to answer.
Dear John Quinn: 1. Dispatched Lewis' Tarr to Knopf yesterday, ms.
complete, at last. Heubsch has written to Egoist for it, but you said
Knopf was to have first shot. However, it is just as well that there are two
possible publishers in the field.
2. 1 forwarded your cable re Exiles to Joyce, as I couldn't make much of
it. I haven't any copy of Exiles, and Pinker writes me that Joyce has told
him to do something or other with his copy, and Yeats is in France so I
can't get at the copy he either may or may not have (probably in Ireland).
Ergo, I have referred the matter to Joyce himself.
3. 1 am worried by your cable received this A.M. re the two lines on
Chesterton. Do what you like about them. Only they are part of my
position, i.e., that one should name names in satire. And Chesterton is like
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19 17— aetat 31
a vile scum on the pond. The multitude of his mumblings cannot be killed
by multitude but only by a sharp thrust (even that won't do it, but it
purges one's soul).
All his slop — it is really modern Catholicism to a great extent, the never
taking a hedge straight, the mumbo-jumbo of superstition dodging behind
clumsy fun and paradox.
If it were a question of cruelty to a weak man I shouldn't, of course,
have printed it. But Chesterton is so much the mob, so much the multitude.
It is not as if he weren't a symbol for all the mob's hatred of all art that
aspires above mediocrity.
I feel very differently about Belloc, who once wanted to do the real
thing, and for a long time, at least, had moments of bitterness (I think)
that he had taken the journalistic turning. Still, he has left ' AvriP and his
translation of Bedier's Tristan,
Chesterton has always taken the stand that the real thing isn't worth
doing. (Perhaps this is a slight exaggeration???? Complex of my own
vanity??) My feeling is, perhaps, heightened by a feeling that I should
probably like G.K.C. personally if I ever met him. Still, I believe he
creates a milieu in which art is impossible. He and his kind.
However, I don't want to be hysterical over two lines. If you want
them out or if Knopf thinks it will cost him too much to retain them, do
what you think best. It is not so important that it should appear in
America as here. (It has appeared in BLAST anyhow.)
Still, someone had to be the first to say that Hall Caine wasn't Christ
returned, and Marie Corelli wasn't Flaubert, etc.
On the other hand, the lines are contemptuous, and contempt may not
be a very formidable weapon. Leave the lines in the limited edition, any-
how, and do what you like with the other.
Lewis is out of hospital and back in the thick of it. Last note said he had
his respirator on for two hours without break, parapet of one of his
battery's guns knocked off, and general hotness. The news this A.M. is
excellent.
I hope you are getting some fun out of The Little Review. I am. I feel I
have been a bit slow in getting it off the mark, but stuff has to go from
here so far in advance, and I couldn't at the start tell quite what I should be
able to get hold of. And some people simply can't be depended on to get
stuff in by a given date. I have perhaps lost one number out of the first six,
i.e., I should have got the stuff of the first six numbers into the first five.
I am very much pleased at getting such a lot from Hueffer. Watt has
written to Hardy,
Symons sent in unasked. Wanted to be with us unpaid rather than have
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me send his playlet to Drama, which I offered to do, as it isn't particularly
of this generation, and as Drama would have paid him.
I shall send ms. of my prose collection to Knopf as soon as The Egoist
sends me clear proofs of the 'Fontenelle.' That will be better for K.'s
printers to work from than the sections cut from the paper.
To-Day for July has a review of J.B.Y.'s letters, joined widi an attack
on Bennett. I think Father will have sent you the Times Literary Supple-
ment review of the letters (it is by Clutton-Brock).
Father has just sent me a copy of Seven Arts. I am glad there is some-
thing else.
I have been in a whirl of work for weeks. However, you'll see the
results. No use discussing 'em here.
Do what you like re the ' Cake of Soap.' Please remember me to J.B.Y.
130: To Harriet Monroe
London, 21 August
Dear H.M. : Re the Brooke. / didn't write about his beautiful
toes, it was his ' friend' who chose that theme for a dithyrambic. And some
of his friends were a pretty poor lot. I don't mind the article 1 not appear-
ing, but I wish I could really get you roused on the meaning of the Ameri-
can University and the menace of it.
The professor and his class are the only people in America who know
enough to get a perspective, i.e., who could for example compare Masters
and Crabbe, and get a level appreciation. They are so stuck that they, of
course, don't see Masters. They are so provincial that they don't know any
modern French (which in this case is the other angle from which to get a
proper appreciation of Masters, i.e. apart from a rhetorical whoop, or a
controversial smashing of the fools who opposed his Spoon River Antho-
logy)-
This sort of defence isn't balanced appreciation. It don't in the least help
the next real thing that appears.
The matter ought to be gone on with, both in detail and in general —
whether my tone in doing so is politic or not. Nobody else ever has the
nerve to tackle this sort of thing: heaven knows it is not particularly enjoy-
able. In dealing with the 'public' one has never said enough. There is
nothing but * rubbing it in ' that has the slightest effect.
1 An article protesting the award of the Henry Howland Memorial Prize for
poetry to the heirs of Rupert Brooke.
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1 9 17— ae tat 31
I am sorry Sandburg don't like Three Cantos, F is too low in the
scale of God's creatures to bother about. I can't see how anyone can see the
thing in such small sections. However, the printing it in three parts has
given me a chance to emend, and the version for the book is, I think, much
improved. Eliot is the only person who proffered criticism instead of
general objection.
I discount Sandburg's objection, by the fact that he would probably
dislike anything with foreign quotations in it. Flint used to be the same
(may be yet). Still one can't stop merely because some people haven't read
Latin. It is the complex of the uneducated, in the same way class hatred
works on the basis of money. Don't for God's sake say this to Sandburg.
A decent system would give him time to loaf in a library. Which while
perhaps less important that loafing in pubs, is still a part of the complete
man's loafing.
Anyhow my next batch of stuff will be short poems, which, let us hope,
someone will enjoy. Also one should not do the same thing all the time.
The long poem is at least a change.
Are you printing Alice's poems on American poets? They are the only
entertaining native products I have seen for some time.
The lowest level is reached by The Seven Arts. Compare their August
poem 'The Old Courtesan' with the poem of Villon's from which Rodin
named his statuette, to which the 7 Arts animal dedicates his muck.
The enclosed note is typical. Will you send the ass a copy of Poetry,
Oct. 19 1 3, with my list of French poets in it. Who the hell does she think
is going to pay my board while I take two months to translate a volume of
selections from contemporary French writers. She is like Weygandt who
wrote for free copies of my books just after he had come into a fortune.
For sheer lack of consideration or realization give me a compatriot
every time. Too bloody lazy to know anything or read anything. Why the
hell can't she subscribe to The Egoist and read Ciolkowska, who is the only
regular chronicler of French stuff.
131: To Wyndham Lewis
London, 25 August
Dear Lewis: Tarr has been gathered into a lump and been sent to
America. As that sentence cannot possibly pass any censor, let me say
clearly 'The manuscript of your novel' more or less correct (Miss S.
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having been through the furrin languidges) has at last been dispatched by
I have also a receipt from Barclay's for £12/12 (sent to be sure to Miss
E. Pound, but passons). That's for your Egyptian drawing. I forget the
name and can't be bothered looking it up. I have asked them to print the
'Soldier of Humour' all in one number (Dec).
As to Mayfair. I wrote you months ago that I hadn't seen anybody for
ages. My letter was sent back with a statement that your whereabouts was
uncertain. It was just after you had gone to hospital. My tidings were then
stale, and no use.
Miss S. has sent you the letters, with request to expurgate. I'd rather you
did it yourself. I am using the Preface 'Inferior Religions' in Sept. and
'Cantleman' in Oct. Lady Gregory's respectability in Nov. supposed to
placate the reader.
I am doing a series of 'Studies of Contemporary Mentality' in the New
Age. Entertaining, laborious, unimportant. Am also plotting a book of
essays for American publication. That's not of very breathless interest
either. Really I feel as if I had writ an article a day for a month. Am trying
to get 'caught up.'
The Figaro cutting was entertaining. Miss S. did not say it was from
you. Probably never entered her head that anyone would suppose it to be
her own, very own, unaided discovery.
Baker is worried about you. I do not think I picture your life as one of
satin-coated ease. However, it is just as well to emphasise things. I have
not read Barbusse, Dorothy did. Baker don't feel like reading it either.
I don't see what the hell any writer can add to one's imagination of
things. However . . . that's no reason for not trying. And again neither
Baker nor I can be taken as types of average imagination. All these books
should ultimately be very useful [lacuna] . . 1 has done one on the hospi-
tals. ' La vie des Mar . .[lacuna] . . s '.
I on the contrary have been writing of Laforgue, Elizabethan classicists,
etc. etc. Vildrac said 'Ce serait bien plaisant, passer sa vie en belles
Etudes/
I believe my two cousins who certainly don't care a hang for European
civilization have both been called up. Such is the irony of things.
There's an American employment something or other, which has told
me to go away and be quiet, that in time our own troops will give us all the
employment, etc.
None of which things will in the least temper the sounds of ' The End of
a Perfect Day' or kindred gramophone records or stay off crumps from
your parapet.
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1917— aetat 31
I wish you would get a decent and convenient wound in some compara-
tively tactful part of your anatomy. Say the left buttock. But that makes
lying in bed uncomfortable. Really it is difficult to choose a part suitable
for mangling. Hell.
Such gossip as there is, it is not amusing. The Strand magazine for
Sept. assures me the [lacuna] are effective. The Morning Chronicle assures
me my compatriots are called 'Teddies/ which is one in the eye for Mr.
Woodie Wilson. However, transpontine politics may not amuse you. I
have sent on the Little Review. I suppose the Aug. will arrive sometime,
but it has nothing of yours. Etc.
132: To Harriet Monroe
London, 26 August
Dear H.M.: Here is the first of the French articles. Eliot is uncertain about
his copy, undependable for anything at a given date. The work at the bank
which at first seemed to leave him freer than teaching, now seems to use a
deal of his energy. It is a great waste.
De Bosschfere is busy with his illustrations. He says he will do Suares or
Elskamp. But it is a bit hard to hurry him until his poem is printed.
Re what you said about the French articles accused of following in
Amy's wake. I think you had better put this note in the notes:
'The Approach to Paris,' Mr. Pound's first series of articles dealing
with Jules Romains, Vildrac, De Regnier, R£my de Gourmont,
Laurent Tailhade, Corbtere, Rimbaud, Klingsor, Jammes, and other
contemporary French poets, appeared in The New Age in the late
summer of 1913. (Vide a note on Romains, and one headed 'Paris' in
our issues for Aug. and Oct. of that year.)
I think that will stave off any suggestion of Amy's having led me. I met
Romains and Vildrac in the spring of that year, and had read La Vie
Unanime in 1912 or 191 1.
Not that priority matters eternally. Amy had read a lot of French when
I met her. I certainly did not initiate her into the mysteries of modern
French, or she me.
The only thing, or at least the thing one envies the rich is that they can
order up fifty new books whenever the fancy takes them.
I did my reviews out of Fletcher's copies and, I think, cut the pages in
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several. He had a splendid lot of books. And certainly a lot of them had not
undergone the paper-cutter.
My series of articles must have been running in the N.A. when Amy
landed here on her first great political circuit.
Ah well, let us come to the present.
I went through a great pile of Margaret Postgate's poems. Found you
had seen them and selected one. The rest seem to me to have a germ, but
to be unready for publication.
The war seems to have stopped poetry here and in France. Undigested
war is no better than undigested anything else. Now no one has time to
digest.
Sunday
I am copying out and enclosing three poems by ' P.T.R.' I have come
to no decision about them. They seem to me to 'have come,' i.e. the sub-
ject has made the poem. That is perhaps their only virtue, but it is in con-
trast to the flood of stuff wherein the author has so obviously been racking
his head to find something to write about. At any rate they are not
factitious.
I haven't the slightest conviction about the girl's ability (she is a frierd
of Miss Postgate's), nor do I expect, or not expect, anything about her
future production.
If you don't want them, please send them back promptly. Most, or at
least a lot, of my worry about Poetry has been due to delay in Chicago,
and authors' fussing at this end.
Note, I am not in favour of using English stuff unless it is better than
the local produce.
2. As the magazine has had practically no English support, I think it
would be well after the war to use French stuff where possible, in place of
English.
If you are going to lead, that is about the only regular thing you can
do now. We should have at least two pages of French poetry per month, if
not four.
The time is not as opportune as when I first urged this five years ago;
France will be more exhausted by the war than is England. Nevertheless, I
hope to get to Paris when it is over. And to distinguish ourselves from the
Boston poetry this-that-and-the-others, a French section will be excellent.
Only one must be able to be quite definite with the men when one meets
them.
It will be a change, and the guarantors will want signs of life, and you
mustn't slip into the tone of The Dial, The Seven Arts, The New Republic,
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1 9 17— aetat 31
etc. ... at least the magazine is done if you do, and its preeminence is
departed.
All the other ' new magazines ' have found England by now.
On the practical side, I must be out to buy a certain amount of French
verse before I can possibly get at what good there is. The actual putting
this plan into effect is probably some time off, but one must prepare and
agree about it.
I do not see anything new or alive coming here, and one might per-
fectly well give up the English pages to French. The format is now so big
that four pages of French will leave plenty of room for all the decent
American stuff (and space over).
I think also we should add a definite French correspondent if I can find
the right man. I think I have one who will do, i.e. who has some sense and
who would take enough interest in the matter. There are several intelligent
men who would not take an interest; they won't do.
The minimum offerable arrangement would be six articles a year at 10
dollars each. And someone would have to be paid 2 dollars or 2.50 each to
translate diem. That would possibly be me. I don't think it can be done
any cheaper.
This ought to have been done long ago. But anyhow. A magazine can't
stand still. It must grow or decay.
I suggest articles of 1500 to 2000 words. 2 pages of French poetry the
month of the article and 4 pages the alternate months. And I should cut out
practically all London poetry save Yeats, Eliot, and stuff of really unusual
interest. Also the weeds of U.S. vers libre which is getting to the state the
Celtic glamour had got to ten years ago.
Miss Tietjens' book had nice stuff in it, but was not tense enough.
I shall follow my essay on French satirists by one on The Hard and Soft
in French poetry. I have it in my head and think it will be a good one.
133: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, {? 30 August)
Dear M.C.A.: He 'happens to know* I omitted a name because of per-
sonal dislike. He is a bloody and louse-eaten liar.
As a guide to tender feet, I suggest that my 'personal dislike* of indi-
vidual contemporaries has largely arisen from two causes (also that it has
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arisen subjectively in the mind or boozum of the disliked and not in my
own).
Cause i. a. My unwillingness to praise what seems to me unworthy of
jhraise.
b. My unwillingness, after having discerned a faint gleam of vir-
tue in a young man's work, or even got some of his stuff
printed, then to be unable to note signs of progress in later
work, or even to be unable to retain my interest.
Cause 2. My interest (sudden or gradual) in the work of some other artist
or writer.
I think there is one slip in the number. 'Help us to make the L.R. a
power.' Bad wording. Nothing but our own blasted contents will do that.
Henley was a power, I have heard tell, with the National Observer when
its circulation had shrunk to 80 subscribers. I don't want to pursue
dominion to that extent, but it is a glorious precedent.
As for my 'personal dislike' of poets. CRRRRHist Jheezus when I think
of the hours' boredom I have put up with from people merely because
they have in an unguarded and irrecoverable and irresponsible moment
committed a good poem, or several !!!!!! Ah, that one might live to
see the expression on the face of a new poet, whom I had just been boost-
ing, upon seeing another still newer poet seated in an armchair.
And then there is Amy. Is there any life into which the personal Amy
would not bring rays of sunshine? Alas ! and alas only, that the price, i.e.,
equal suffrage in a republic of poesy, a recognition of artistic equality,
should come between us.
I think, despite the difficulty of knowing what one will think in a year's
time, 1 think, credo che credessi, etc., that dear Amy Lowell's talents and
temperament will always be political rather than literary or artistic. She is
delightful. Only she wanted me to sell out lock stock and barrel, and I
said it didn't interest me. And still she would have it, so I named a price,
i.e., I said I would contribute to a democratized anthology if she would
institute a yearly prize for poetry to be adjudged by Yeats, Hueffer, and
myself. (I even went so far as to name a committee including herself. I
can't remember whether it was she, I and Yeats, or she, I and Hueffer, or
all four.) But that touched the sacred springs of wrath.
I think she was a bloody fool, for we could have bust the British
academic committee (called the British Academy) to smithereens, and she
could have been somebody over here (which she wanted to be) rather than
being driven back to the Hylo kennels.
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19 17— aetat 31
134: To Amy Lowell
London, 30 August
My dear Amy: Are you going to get onto the Band Wagon?
You tried to stampede me into accepting as my artistic equals various
people whom it would have been rank hypocrisy for me to accept in any
such manner. There is no democracy in the arts.
And now what is this nonsense you write to Miss Anderson about
'bitterest' enmities?
135: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, {September)
Ch&re M.: The Iris Barry and Rodker stuff is not a compromise but a bet,
I stake my critical position, or some part of it, on a belief that both of them
will do something. I am not risking much, because I have seen a lot of their
mss. The Barry has done the draft of a novel, and it has the chance of
being literature. Rodker has convinced me, at last, daat he 'has it in him.'
And one must have les jeunes. Rodker ought to be up to regulation in a
few years' time.
He will go farther than Richard Aldington, though I don't expect any-
one to believe that statement for some time. He has more invention, more
guts. His father did not have a library full of classics, but he will learn.
They are neither of them stupid, blockheaded as F and Lawrence
are stupid and blockheaded. Lawrence had less showing above the water-
line when Hueffer took him up than Rodker has now. And certainly
Hueffer has been justified. Much as Lawrence annoys me, and inferior as
he is to Joyce.
Yes The Seven Arts is slop. Yes. And The New Republic is dung dust,
with an admixture of dung, also dust dry.
I must get out of the big stick habit, and begin to put my prose stuff
into some sort of possibly permanent form, not merely into saying things
which everybody will believe in three years' time and take as a matter of
course in ten.
I.e. articles which can be reduced to 'Joyce is a writer, goddamn your
eyes, Joyce is a writer, I tell you Joyce etc etc/ Lewis can paint, Gaudier
knows a stone from a milk-pudding. Wipe your feet 111!!!
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136: To Edgar Jepson
London, 7 September
Dear Jepson: I have the idea, scheme, plot, for the spy-detective com-
munication with the foe story. But I am too bleating green in the form.
Can you, or will you collaborate? And will you come in to tea, any day
to say No or Yes, or discuss the matter? I shall be in Saturday and Sunday
at tea time. Or you can drop me a card if some day next week suits you
better.
137: To William Carlos Williams
London, 10 November
My dear William: At what date did you join the ranks of the
old ladies?
Among the male portion of the community one constantly uses frag-
ments of letters, fragments of conversation (anonymously, quite anony-
mously, not referring to the emitter by name) for the purpose of sharpen-
ing a printed argument.
I note your invitation to return to my fatherland (pencil at the top of
your letter sic g.t.h.); I shall probably accept it at the end of the war.
My knowledge of the ('stet') American heart is amply indicated in
' L'Homme Moyen Sensuel.'
I had no ulterior or hidden meaning in calling you or the imaginary
correspondent an 'American' author. Still, what the hell else are you? I
mean apart from being a citizen, a good fellow (in your better moments),
a grouch, a slightly hypersensitized animal, etc.?? Wot bloody kind of
author are you save Amurkun (same as me) ?
And whether, O Demosthenes, is one to be called a 'damn fool' or a
'person'?
Your sap is interrupted. Try De Gourmont's 'Epilogue' ('95— '98). And
don't expect the world to revolve about Rutherford.
If you had any confidence in America you wouldn't be so touchy about
it.
I thought the millennium that we all idiotically look for and
work for was to be the day when an American artist could stay at home
without being dragged into civic campaigns, dilutations of controversy,
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1917— Aetat 32
etc., when he could stay in America without growing propagandist. God
knows I have to work hard enough to escape, not propagande, but getting
centred in propagande.
And America ! What the hell do you a bloomin' foreigner know about
the place? Your pfere only penetrated the edge, and you've never been west
of Upper Darby, or the Maunchunk switchback. Would Harriet, with the
swirl of the prairie wind in her underwear, or the virile Sandburg recognize
you, an effete Easterner, as a real American? Inconceivable ! ! ! !
My dear boy, you have never felt the whoop of the PEEraries. You have
never seen the projecting and protuberant Mts. of the Sierra Nevada. Wot
can you know of the counthry ?
You have the naive credulity of a Co. Claire emigrant. But I (der
grosse Ich) have the virus, the bacillus of the land in my blood, for nearly
three bleating centuries.
(Bloody snob. 'Eave a brick at 'im ! ! ! !)
You (read your Freud) have a Vaterersatz, you have a paternal image at
your fireside, and you call it John Bull.
Your statement about my wanting Paris to be like London is a figment
of your own diseased imagination.
'I warn you that anything you say at this time may later be used against
you.' The Arts vs. Williams.
Or will you my head on a platter? Or would you like it brought over to
be punched?? A votre service, M'sieu. I am coming to inspect you.
I of course like your Old Man, and I have drunk his Goldwasser.
I was very glad to see your wholly incoherent unAmerican poems in the
L.R.
Of course Sandburg will tell you that you miss the 'big drifts/ and
Bodenheim will object to your not being sufficiently decadent.
(You thank your bloomin gawd you've got enough Spanish blood to
muddy up your mind, and prevent the current American ideation from
going through it like a blighted collander.)
The thing that saves your work is opacity, and don't you forget it.
Opacity is not an American quality. Fizz, swish, gabble of verbiage, these
are echt Amerikanisch.
And Alas, alas, poor old Masters. Look at Oct. Poetry.
But really this 'old friend* hurt feeling business is too Skipwithcan-
n&lish; it is peu vous. I demand of you more robustezza. Bigod sir, you
show more robustezza, or I will come over to Rutherford and have at you,
coram, in person.
And moreover you answer my questions, p. 38, before you go on to the
p.s. p. 39 which does not concern you.
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Let me indulge in the American habit of quotation:
' Si le cosmopolitisme litt&aire gagnait encore et qu'il r&issit k £teindre
ce que les differences de race ont allum£ de haine de sang parmi les hommes,
j'y verrais un gain pour la civilisation et pour l'humanit6 tout enti&re. . . .
'L'amour excessif et exclusif d'une patrie a pour imm&Hat corollaire
Thorreur des patries £trang£res. Non seulement on craint de quitter la jupe
de sa maman, d'aller voir comment vivent les autres hommes, de se mSler
k leurs luttes, de partager leurs travaux; non seulement on reste chez soi,
mais on finit par fermer sa porte.
'Cette folie gagne certains litterateurs et le mSme professeur,en sortant
d'expliquer le Cid ou Don Juan, redige de gracieuses injures contre Ibsen
et l'influence, helas, trop illusoire, de son oeuvre, pourtant toute de
lumifere et de beaut£.' Et cetera. Lie down and compose yourself.
P.S. It's also nonsense this wail that M.C.A. 'dislikes' you.
138: To H. L. Mencken
London, 28 November
Dear Mencken: Mr. Hatteras hasn't sent me the leetle book he wrote of.
I suppose it is the same 'Lives of Apostles' slated by Orage in The New
Age, on the same page with my ' Fontenelle.' You might jog his memory
when you see him.
I have enjoyed your Book of Prefaces (sent me by John Quinn). I was
doing a note on it for the L.R. but lost my temper over your remarks on
H. James on the page where you treat him and Howells together.
I see the idea aufond, and grant part of it, but your expression is very
careless, and you shouldn't treat a great man and a mutton-shank in one
page as if there were no gulph between 'em. I have taken my copy of the
book to The N. Age and asked Orage to give full notice to last essay. It is
worth it.
James was, I admit, touched with a sort of Puritanism but you will
recall that Goncourt in the preface either to La Fille Elisa or Germanie
Laceruux says 'we have only been able to do crude types in our realism,
but realism will go on and manage to present more complex types, more
complex psychology' (I quote from memory, but that is the gist of it).
What Henry calls 'down town,' or rather more than that, was done by the
Goncourts, and H.J. was, I think, more than justified in not trying to do it
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1917— aetat 32
again, especially as he was better fitted to cover a different terrain. Be-
sides he has written the most obscene book of our time, puritan or no
puritan.
God save us from him when he gets off on connoisseurship.
I dare say you make Dreiser rather more interesting than his own books
are. Re Huneker I think you weaken your case a little by only having at
your disposal some very new artists not necessarily better than those
whom he 'has got to.' One may still prefer Debussy to Ornstein, even
though convinced that De B. is stuck at about 19 10.
I think you have done a good, and much needed job, and have enjoyed
the book very much (with these few reservations).
Regards to Hatteras.
139: To Harriet Monroe
London, 29 November
Dear H.M.: I wonder if you have seen H. L. Mencken's Book of % Prefaces ,
especially the last essay in it.
I think Poetry, with its intense, its almost oppressively respectable repu-
tation for respectability, is in a good position to take up this matter of
interference with the mails. (Not re war and pacifism, for I believe it is
legal for a government to do almost anything in war time. That is, any-
thing short of military law itself may be regarded as a palliative or sub-
stitute for military law.) But re the pre-war and coming post-war inter-
ference with the mails by Comstock's committee of blackguards, some-
thing certainly ought to be done. And as Poetry has never printed any-
thing that could bring the blush to the cheek of a deaf nun I think the
magazine is in an excellent position to act.
Re the unGermanization of universities, which I have, as you may have
forgotten, been yelling for some time, I now see that some professors have
proclaimed it. Not, of course, because they know what or why, but on
'pathriotic' grounds.
However, that also should be encouraged. And the nature of philology,
as a system of dehumanization, gone into.
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140: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? December)
Dear M.C.A.: If London and particularly Mayfair, is going to take up the
magazine, we must be more careful than ever not to have in too much
Amy, and suburbs.
Re Amy: I don't want to hedge too much. I don't think we need bar her
from the magazine, but she can't write for the mondaine London clientele.
At least I can't see Lady Randolph Churchill (or May Sinclair, for ex-
ample) reading her with any spirit of reverence. These people can take it
just as strong as Lewis can pitch. Your own tone suits 'em O.K. (Not that
you'd care a damn if it didn't but you may as well know it.)
Hecht is an asset. Hard reading and a bit heavy, but he has the root of
the matter in him. He is trying to come to grips also. When he recalls the
fact that Maupassant does not exaggerate, he can write contes — i.e., can
(future) will be able to.
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1918
141: To Harriet Monroe
London, 1 January
Dear H.M,: Nov. and Dec. numbers arrived last night and this A.M.
I enclose my harvest. 1 have made two series of it, one mediaeval. Before
you blaspheme over it, do read the Canzon aloud. I have completely re-
written, or nearly finished completely rewriting all Arnaut Daniel. I use
this translation among the adaptations in this series because it needs no
explanatory notes, as do some of the other canzoni. The best one of the lot
can perhaps appear only in the volume, where notes will be in place.
There has been no attention to sound for so long, save from Lindsay.
And his is interesting only as Kipling's was. Believe me one can write it by
the hour as fast as one scribbles. However you never will believe me in this
matter, so passons. I don't in the least want to stop Lindsay, any more than
I would have stopped Barrack Room Ballads.
The Proven$al is to precede the ' (Moeurs) Contemporaines.' I think it
will all go on about 1 1 pages. I have marked the first little alba to be put in
small italics at top of right hand side of page, that will save space. As with
the quatrain from Lope de Vega in * The Condolence.'
I liked your comment p. 89, Nov. no. Naturally pleased to see the folk
song idea smacked again. Even an eminent London musical critic has
recently got on a platform and said 'all folk songs have authors and the
authors are individuals.' The blessing of the 'folk' song is solely in that
the 'folk' forget and leave out things. It is a fading and attrition not a
creative process.
My lot should have two separate chief headings, as indicated. The Pro-
ven$al are to have Roman numerals I. to V. I am not sure that numerals are
necessary in the ' Contemporaines.'
I shall probably do some more work on sound. Anything really made to
speak or sing is bound to lose on the page, unless the reader have some
sense of sound. This I can not help. Simply the vers libre public are pro-
bably by now as stone blind to the vocal or oral properties of a poem as the
'sonnet' public was five or seven years ago to the actual language, i.e. all
that has made my stuff interesting since 'Contemporania.' This is simply
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to fore-say that the Canzon will set a lot of people grumbling. And that I
don't care a damn. Not any more than I cared about the objections to vers
libre.
I am profoundly glad my earlier versions of Arnaut weren't published.
It gives me a chance to do something with it.
The old man, and the harp, and Mr. Styrax will hold the balance. You
won't have a wail about my having forsaken or forsworn the present. I
dare say you are content to get anything rather than Canto IV. 1
Knopf writes that he sold 323 copies Lustra in Oct. and 9 in Nov., and
that nobody had offered any assistance. Sandburg has of course pretty well
covered the ground, still perhaps there might be a brief notice of the
existence of the American edition. It contains, as you have doubtless
seen, earlier stuff than that which has appeared in Poetry and is fairly
good value in pages. The note of acknowledgment is just before the
Cantos.
142: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? January)
Dear M.C.A.: Do give me credit occasionally for at least a reason for my
acts. Even if it isn't the sole and surviving reason left on the planet; and
even if I occasionally do not hit a bull's-eye.
And do for god's sake realize that having graciously wasted a week ex-
plaining that I would accept K but could not pay for him; I cannot waste
another saying that we will not print him. I have only a certain amount of
energy; and that I have (a) to get my poetry written; (b) to pay my rent
etc., (c) to assist in the promulgation of The L.R. (letters to be placed in
any order you like).
There appears to be nothing in America between professors and
Kreymborgs and Bodenheim. Platonic hemiandroi. Anemia of guts on one
side and anemia of education on the other.
As yet since May of last year America has coughed up no 'creative'
stuff, i.e. no poetry or fiction to The L.R. apart from jh 2 on females with
1 She wasn't. She accepted neither series, considering both 'unprintable'. Her
notes on several of the poems are instructive. Of 'Vergier': 'lovely, but —
frank!' Of 'Mr. Styrax': 'Impossibly frank — virgo'. Of 'Ritratto': 'Amusing —
about Lowell — but " stomped into my bedroom" \
2 Jane Heap.
186,
19 1 8— aetat 32
faces with noses level with ears which wasn't fiction. But apart from the
editorial, the U.S. has given nothing to contents of L.R. save that treacle
about Judas which affected me much more violently than K seems to have
affected you.
Even so I think you were 'right' to print it, on the principle that one
must accept something now and again, if one is not utterly to choke off all
inflow of mss. (a very dangerous principle, but pragmatic). And, as you
say, I am ageing rapidly. Byron is described as very old, or at least gray
and showing age at 36. 1 have but few years left me. I cannot be expected
to keep up sufficient interest in the state of public imbecility to go on being
'astringent' perpetually.
I wonder at what point a discussion of music would lead you and me
into mutual assassination ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Gawd only knows.
Joyce, by the way, approves of the clavichord. And he has also sung in
opera. Lewis, I think, regards the instrument as a strange unaccountable
sort of mouse- trap; the charwoman (after four months' service) spoke of it
the other day as 'the little black table' (observation the leading character-
istic of the ' lower orders').
Ch£re amie, I am, for the time being, bored to death with being any kind
of an editor. I desire to go on with my long poem; and like the Duke of
Chang, I desire to hear the music of a lost dynasty. (Have managed to hear
it, in fact.) And I desire also to resurrect the art of the lyric, I mean words
to be sung, for Yeats' only wail and submit to keening and chawnting
(with a u) and Swinburne's only rhapsodify. And with a few exceptions
(a few in Browning) there is scarcely anything since the time of Waller and
Campion. And a mere imitation of them won't do.
143: To Wyndham Lewis
London, 13 January
DearW.L.:— / — /
You will be grieved to know that The Little Review lost its case, 1
despite J.Q.'s noble defence 'The man who wrote that story can not be a
sensualist' etc. I have all the papers of the case, and some of them are rich
and refreshing reading. I have been too busy with the Xllth Century to
1 The October 191 7 issue was suppressed in America because of Lewis' story
' Candeman's Spring Mate*.
187
London
take any further steps in the matter. The job is now about done, and part
of it decently.
I enclose more on Augustus, springing from the Castalian fount of the
Chenil.
Virgin's Prayer
E\ra Pound
And Augustus John
Bless the bed
That I lie on.
(Authorship unrecognized, I first heard it in 1909.) It is emphatically not
my own, I believe it to have come from an elder generation. However it is
not pertinent to the subject. No one else ever coupled our names.
Orage hopes to get the Contemporary Mentality published as a book.
It is not an important fandango. Enough of this.
144: To Margaret C. Anderson
London^ {? January)
Dear Margaret: Right you are. Re Quinn, remember: Tis he who hath
bought the pictures; tis he who both getteth me an American publisher
and smacketh the same with rods; tis he who sendeth me the Spondos
Oligos, which is by interpretation the small tribute or spondooliks where-
with I do pay my contributors, wherefore is my heart softened toward
the said J.Q., and he in mine eyes can commit nothing heinous.
Can you, on the other hand, see Mencken? He writes hoping the sup-
pression won't drive you out of business; and if he chose to wail in his
back pages re 'Cantleman' (Lewis), it might do some good. After all he
still has a circulation. And his eyes discerned me years since.
Re Amy. I don't want her. But if she can be made to liquidate, to
excoriate, to cash in, on a magazine, especially in a section over which I
have no control, and for which I am not responsible, then would I be
right glad to see her milked of her money, mashed into moonshine, at
mercy of monitors. Especially as appearance in U.S. section does not
commit me to any approval of her work.
Of course (/"(which is unlikely) she ever wanted to return to the true
church and live like an honest woman, something might be arranged.
But...
188
1918— aetat 32
Is she yet weary of B , and the mulattoism, mental and
physical?
Do, or perhaps do not, regard the prospectus of Contemporary Verse. Of
all the crapule that a reputed millionaire was ever responsible for. ... I
hope it costs S something.
(Also remember that I can't possibly know from this side which of my
damned suggestions are any good. Probably any suggestion I make re
American policy is bad. However I may as well send 'em. You can reject
'em with perfect ease.)
Etc. I do have to stop and earn my board now and again. Malheureuse-
ment.
145: To H. L. Mencken
London, 25 January
Dear Mencken: Thanks for Pistols. It has its moments. But it don't keep
up the 'Man of Sixty' tone, wherein Hatteras is at his best. It also does not
appear to be the work of a man of ' them years.'
I sent off my notes on Prefaces to Miss A. I was too exhausted to recast
diem and told her to go ahead if she liked. Boyd has just proposed an
article on the book, either for Egoist or L.R., and I have asked him to send
it on. I think the sketch of Nathan is better done than that of Mencken. It
is a gay work. Orage is very stupid over it.
Can't find the bloody thing (i.e. his review) at the moment.
As you never eat with authors, I hope you will drop in between meals on
your way to the Tyrol. Unless you choose to regard me as, by brevet, an
editor, or a human being.
There is great desolation in litterchure at the moment. Joyce's new
novel has a corking 1st Chap, (which will get us suppressed), not such a
good second one.
I think I have found a new writer of contes. At least he promises.
Hatteras must be sixty. I have been reading him for . . . well no, not
forty years. Perhaps he need only be fifty.
146: To John Quinn
London, 29 January
Dear Quinn: If my last cable has reached you it should answer your last
two or three.
189
London
Maud Gonne was sent to a nursing home, which she left, apparently
without opposition, at the end of about five days.
Home Office wrote me that the arrangement had been made for a week.
At any rate, she is now apparently free, living at Woburn Bldgs. and
agitating for return to Ireland.
That country, so far as I know, has never been considered a health-
resort for consumptives. As soon as she got to the nursing home she was
interviewed for some Irish paper. Lansbury has since turned loose in the
Herald. And M.G. is, I think, writing to other papers. I give it up.
She talks about there being no ' German plot.' Now, to the best of my
knowledge, she was not accused of any complicity in German plots. Most
of the arrests were, I believe, 'preventive/ the official position being that
trouble was likely, and that it was better to lock up a certain number of
people than to have a lot more shot and a few more in danger of hanging.
I enclose the rough draft of my letter to Lamar. It's no use, I haven't a
typist, and can't do everything. I send you the draft merely for the sake of
one or two points for your own consideration.
Orage is going to have a look at the papers of the case today. Thanks for
booming me to him.
Re copying the Lamar letter. I have finished my Arnaut, and now Ray-
monde Collignon is really going to sing the old music, the reconstructions
Rummel and I made six years ago. It means a new start on the whole thing
(Provensal XII Century music), and probably the resurrection of as much
of it as is worth while. We've been held up for lack of a singer with the
right equipment, intelligence, etc.
Anyhow, it is more important than trying to save America from itself.
Fortunately, I've the reprods. of the Milan mss. and some copies we
made of various mss. in Paris, so we'll be able to go ahead despite the
Bibliotheque National's being closed. Only inconvenience being that
Rummel is in Paris, so some of the work will have to be by letter.
Re the rough draft for Lamar. I am glad it was not written to me.
Knopf wrote on Jan. 4 and on Jan. 7, before and after Quinn. Con-
trast extremely amusing.
147: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? February)
Dear Margaret: Jan. number arrived. Feeling better. Number looks busi-
ness-like, and 'about to continue.* Damn, damn, damn I must pull myself
together and do something.
190
19 1 8— aetat 32
I wish to Christ you would take an anaesthetic and print this cursed
thing of Keary's; thereby saving me time to breathe and get something
written.
Bill Wms. is the most bloody inarticulate animal that ever gargled. But
it's better than Amy's bloody ten-cent repetitive gramophone, perfectly
articulate (i.e. in the verbal section).
Whereas the bleating genius of the home product. Hecht might write
good De Maupassant if he didn't try to crack jokes and ring bells; and if he
would only realize that he don't need to exaggerate to be interesting.
Sangre di San Pietro ! ! ! Why ! ! ! do you recall that better to be for-
gotten libellule of Wilkinson's????? Raoul Root indeed. 1 Khrrist. Am I
a pet pug to have blue ribbons curled in my tail ?
Despite your wail, Lewis' description of the three American rescuers in
the second half of 'Sol(dier of) Humour' is excellent, Digit of the Moon,
etc. Oh very good. I got him to rewrite some of it, but wot the hell can a
man do in his present circumstances? It is, as he recognizes, a question of
doing his stories somehow or other, or not doing them at all.
He will, if he don't get killed, revise later before book publication.
Dast it, the James and De Gourmont numbers are six months' work
each. And I do not want to sink wholly into criticism to the utter stoppage
of creation. Etc.
148: To H. L. Mencken
London, 12 March
Mon Cher Henri Laureatus Laurentinus: No, I did not write it, Eliot
wrote it, 2 but it would be extremely unwise for him, at this stage of his
career, with the hope of sometime getting paid by elder reviews, and pub-
lished by the godly, and in general of not utterly bitching his chances in
various quarters, for him to have signed it.
This information is confidential. The proposition from N.Y. was to
reprint the De Bosschfere essay on me, but I thought it too high flown, too
much about my noble soul and not sufficiently documenti.
I had just boomed Eliot, but he was the only person one could trust
not to talk about the Rocky Mountains, the bold unfettered West, the
Kawsmos etc.
1 Pound's note on Mencken's Book of Prefaces appeared in The Little Review
under this pseudonym.
2 Eira Pound r His Metric and Poetry.
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London
The thing should have been signed with a nom-de-swank, but it got
printed before that sane suggestion reached Knopf. — / — /
149: To John Quinn
London, 3 April
Dear John Quinn: Thanks for yours of March 14th and the enclosure. It
is awfully good of you to go on talking of getting more guarantors when
you have so many causes to be displeased.
To the best of my recollection, my instructions were that my article was
to be submitted to you.
I agree that the number 1 is too much on one note. The fault lies in
Lewis' delay. The Joyce and Hueffer with something less pungent be-
tween them would have gone very well. Lewis' 'Imaginary Letter*
should have come out months ago. I had forgotten, or rather sending the
mss. over so long ago I had not been able to plan the numbers very much.
Any other chapter of Hueffer would have balanced with the Joyce or
Lewis.
Miss A. was trying to get the Lewis out of the way to make room for my
'Imaginary Letter,' which couldn't precede Lewis' final one.
Also, with the change in size, which I couldn't calculate, either as to
time or as to the effect on consuming mss., plus Miss A.'s elimination of all
American contributions (possibly in deference to Kahn's remarks?), plus
the uncertainty of Lewis' times and seasons, I have had to leave the order
and grouping to Miss A.
I can't agree with you about Joyce's first chapter. I don't think the pas-
sages about his mother's death and the sea would come with such force if
they weren't imbedded in squalor and disgusts.
I may say that I rec'd the fourth chapter some days ago, and deleted
about twenty lines before sending it off to N.Y.; and also wrote Joyce my
reasons for thinking the said lines excessive.
He does not disgust me as Wells does.
Hueffer's stuff was done five years ago. I think it was time somebody
wiped up Weiniger. Tho' I have never been interested enough in him to
read him, I am glad to see him cleaned off and marked, 'Not Necessary/
Neither have I read Havelock Ellis. The 'subject/ as you say, does not
particularly interest me.
1 The March 1 9 1 8 number of The Little Review.
19a
1918— aetat 32
My whole position is simply: 'permettre k ceux qui en valent la peine,
franchement d'&rire leur pensfe.'
Jules Romains is ideologue, and undoubtedly mars his work by riding
an idea to death. If he didn't he probably wouldn't give himself the oppor-
tunity of getting out the really good part of his stuff. He seems to me about
the only 'younger' man in France whose head works at all. There are
interesting things in him. I don't think I have ever claimed more than that.
Duhamel, Chennevtere, Arcos, all less than Romains, and if they did any-
thing good he would know it.
I don't believe in Rolland. Possibly prejudiced by Cannan, but still I
don't believe in anybody Cannan would take up with.
I wish Romains was someone you believed in, but still — 1 can't see any
way round that particular corner. I am not infatuated, I simply think him
the best of the lot over there. One of the few who would be with us,
rather than with the Poetry Book Shop and the Georgian Anthologies,
Abercrombie, Eddie Marsh, etc.
There is something in his work. It is not the hebetude of a lignified cere-
brum. And I think I did mention limitations in my note on the 'Hard and
Soft in Fr. Poetry.'
I think also he is possibly an organizer. The other organizers in Paris
are either pure wind, like Mercereau and Parmentier, or else lunatics like
Barzun (Lowells and Lindsays).
Romains has done at least as much creative work as talk about it. Which
is more than one can say of most of his confreres, etc., etc. At any rate, it is
the best that can be done. Hope Kahn won't think I am lying down on the
job.
Poor Joyce is down again with his eyes. Lewis nearly dying of the
attempt to paint something bad enough in the right way.
Eliot has emitted a few new and diverting verses. Sending 'em for Sept.
Thanks again for correcting Pavannes.
150: To Margaret C. Anderson
London, (? April)
Dear M.C.A.: I enclose another lost sheep. It has taken me months to
recover it, samee Fenollosa.
It is not wildly exciting, and it is not news, but it is a small scrap of
Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique, which considering its date might
N 193
London
serve to show how far tar far etc., how long long long etc., it takes for a
light to travel across the darkness of Anglo-American literature.
I know it is too long, but it simply won't cut, and P. 17 with passage
about Sarah is almost worth waiting for.
Also P. 3. 'It seems probable that God was not attempting to educate
die Jews in philosophy or cosmogony.'
Etc., etc. The damned thing has bits, and they won't come out of the
whole mass of it.
Frazer has of course done the whole job monumentally, but good god
how slowly, in how many volumes. No reader of the Golden Bough is
likely to relapse into bigotry, but it takes such a constitution to read it.
A reminder that * There once was a man called Voltaire ' can do no harm.
The measure in which he is unread, can I think be found by printing the
fragments as 'translated from an Eighteenth Century author' and see how
many people place it.
Poetry has just come with a very asinine note on the Feb. number. 1
Bad poetry being alike everywhere it is natural that Rimbaud should
differ from Longfellow and Vaughan Moody, and Hen Van Dyke, and
that Byron from Musset (both romantic and careless writers of same
degree of relative goodness and badness) should be about even. Byron
rather more snap, a good satirist and a loose writer.
151: To Edgar Jepson
London, (f May)
Dear E.J.: It would be very bad editing for me to devote ten pages to
advertising the existence of Frost, Masters, Lindsay, all of whom are dead
as mutton so far as the L.R. reader is concerned. The L.R. reader in
America, anyhow, has had all he can stand of that lot. He knows what
their stuff looks like etc. Masters we have said farewell to. Frost sinks of
his own weight. Lindsay we have parodied.
Also the reference to me would have to come out. It would do anywhere
save in a magazine where I had so much influence. Also we have just had a
eulogy of Eliot.
Also I don't think you have quite got the concentration of vitriol that
you would have if you had lived in it, and suffered. If I sent the article
1 Poetry, April 1918, pp. 54-5,
194
19 1 8— aetat 32
as it stands Miss A. would merely send it back pointing out that Eliot
' executes ' with more certainty of fire in his Egoist articles.
What I should like would be to cut the thing to three or four pages,
keeping all the sting. It is no use saying 'this is prose': remark has been
worn out on all sorts of vers libre good and bad. It is another matter to say
' This is not only prose, but it is prose damn badly written.'
It seems to me you get the gist of your criticism on p. 426.
A general statement that there is a Wild West school, that they write
such lines as: then the specifically bad lines you have singled out.
(No need long passages to illustrate. / simply skip 'em, and the American
intelligent reader (where he exists), anyhow the reader of current Am.
poetry would merely skip 'em.)
Then p. 426, and the allusion to Eliot, but no need to quote him at
length. The thing was (obviously) aimed at Poetry's readers. The L.R. lot
don't need it at the same length. Eng. Rev. readers need to be shown some
of the rot. That's O.K. for Engl. Rev.
For us, it does too much honour to Frost, Masters and Lindsay to take
'em so seriously. Expression of dislike is no use. Illustration of rottenness
by single punk lines does the job.
More than that is as much a waste of printer's bill as it would be for me
suddenly to rediscover Masefield's diarrhoea, or Abercrombie's desiccated
feces: and present 'em at length.
Four pages is perhaps too brief a space: you have plucked some savorous
blossoms.
Don't know whether this will suit you. Have you a spare copy that I
could try tentative cuts on, if it does. P. 426 does the job or most of it.
If you don't mind my messing about with it, I think I can leave all the
sting, while casting less limelight on certain extremely dull and out of
interest authors.
Mi credo, Masters, Frost, Lindsay are out of the Wild Young American
gaze already. Williams, Loy, Moore, and the worser phenomena of Others,
to say nothing of the highly autochthonous Amy (all over the bloody
shop) are much more in the ' news.'
Also, mon ami, most of my stuff must upset you nearly as much as
Masters, don't let's beat about the bush, not that bush at any rate. Nous ne
sommes plus mioches k pleurer.
*95
London
152: To Edgar Jepson
London, 23 May
Dear E.J.: That's the ticket. Thanks so much for bringing it down to the
gist of the matter.
I didn't want the eulogy of Eliot removed, I only wanted to save the
space required for quoting ' La Figlia,' and the other passage already known
to 'our readers.'
I shall use it in the same number with four new poems of Eliot's. One
entitled 'Sweeney Among the Nightingales' which autochs to beat hell,
and which should raize the haar on the fretful ' Arriet.
My thanks again for the cut-down and general compacting.
I think it has more punch in this form. Tante grazie.
153: To John Quinn
London, 4 June
Dear Quinn: More thanks for going through the proofs of Pavannes.
You have got all the points I noted in the page-galleys, so I was right in
not cabling about them. I enclose further documents re my attempted
acceptance of your cabled suggestion, i.e. my attempt to cable you to call
the appendices Tergenda, if that happened to please you.
Jules Romains writes his thanks for 'ouvrir si largement votre revue. Je
ne demande mieux que d'etre "french editor" comme vous me le pro-
posez. Mais j'aimerais que vous me disiez en quoi au juste consisterait
cette fonction, et de quoi j'aurais 4 m'occuper.'
All of which ought to settle Orage's idiocies in this week's New Age.
I think I gave him a bad minute over his bluff. He hasn't been in Paris for
years, and I don't know what poet he found scoffing at even Flint or
Bithell.
However, his readers will swallow it. And as for the rest of his article, it
is his old game. Zarathustra was intended to appear in an edition of 100
copies, afterwards countermanded to 40, and finally the author kept all
but 8.
R.H.C. 1 is not in literature what his papa and corporeal or actual self is
ip Notes of the Week.
Romains (whatever one thinks of his 'Mort de Quelqu'un') is, I think,
1 A pen-name of A. R. Orage.
196
1918— aetat 32
the Hvest of the current French writers. He suffers less from menta
paralysis. He couldn't have written Tarr> and he hasn't Eliot's discrimina-
tion, but he is not a matoid. At any rate, I have seen him in the flesh, and I
have not heard any suggestions of any better possible collaboration, now
that de Gourmont is dead. Vildrac is too naive to 'edit.'
Also, I think Romains will gather more people, more writers. Certainly
he will do more than Vildrac. I tried to get Vildrac to send me French
mss. for Poetry some years ago. Of course, there wasn't much stimulus
and Harriet wouldn't print anything without years of delay, and only a
page or so, but still Vildrac didn't show much hustle.
Tailhade is over sixty, I daresay over 65. Anatole (beyond reach, and 90
or 120). Tailhade wouldn't have done anyhow y though I'd like some of his
stuff.
I came on a volume which G. C. Cros sent me five years ago. Not
enough mental activity there.
Spire is excellent in spots, but there is an awful lot of rubbish in his
books. De Bossch&re is too queer, too utterly out of touch with every-
thing. Besides, I can see his stuff here, what there is of it, and he'd be no
use in getting a nucleus of French writers (besides, he is not utterly
French).
If Griffin and Merrill hadn't been half American I don't think I should
have mentioned them at all. Lord ! How many divergences I am putting
down in a lump ! However, here goes. I don't think Yeats' Silentia Lunae
hangs together. At least, I don't think it in the same street with his
Memoirs as writing. And I find Noh unsatisfactory. I daresay it's all that
could be done with the material. I don't believe anyone else will come along
to do a better book on Noh, save for encyclopaedizing the subject. And I
admit there are beautiful bits in it. But it's all too damn soft. Like Pater,
Fiona Macleod and James Matthew Barrie, not good enough.
I think I am justified in having spent the time I did on it, but not much
more than that.
In going thru James again, I find him at sea for years, between the first
good stuff and the final achievement. Certainly the American Scene is of the
best. The opening of A Small Boy and Others is disgusting. I think if one
picked up James first with the beginning of that book one would be par-
doned for never returning to him. It picks up at about page 30.
Hueffer on James spatters on for 45 pages of unnecessary writing before
he gets started. I think there are good things in his book.
The notice of Joyce on the back of the February number says it is the
continuation of 'Stephen Daedalus/ But it could just as well have been
repeated in the March number in an editorial note. I didn't think of it.
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I mustn't get to scribbling about Henry James here. I don't believe it
will do any good to overlook his limitations. Nor that one's praise will be
effective if one doesn't recognize the defects, or the great stretch between
his best and his worst.
Meredith is, to me, chiefly a stink. I should never write on him as I
detest him too much ever to trust myself as critic of him. The one phase of
James that one wants to pass over is, to me, James as contemporary of
Meredith.
When he isn't being a great and magnificent author, he certainly can be
a very fussy and tiresome one. I think the main function of my essay is to
get the really good stuff disentangled from the inferior (if one ever can do
that for an author).
He certainly has put America on the map. Given her a local habitation
and a name.
Getting back to Joyce. It still seems to me that America will never look
anything — animal, mineral, vegetable, political, social, international, reli-
gious, philosophical or anything else — in the face until she gets used to
perfectly bald statements.
That's propaganda, if you like, but it seems to me something larger
than the question of whether Joyce writes with a certain odeur-de-
muskrat.
The present international situation seems to me in no small measure due
to the English and American habit of keeping their ostrich heads carefully
down their little silk-lined sand-holes.
I wrote an article on the 'situation' a couple of months ago. I am told it
is intelligent but unprintable. Orage simply said, ' You mingle with people
who are far too interesting. You should go to the National Liberal Club
and learn how one intelligent remark can blast a man's whole career.'
Oh well, one can't go back over all that. I don't care a hang for one
matter more than another. It is the whole habit of verbally avoiding the
issue that seems to be injurious. However, I mustn't get fanatical over it.
The kind of thing that drives one into this state is precisely the con-
dition of other American publications. In my Swinburne article in Poetry
I recounted Watts-Dunton's conduct at the funeral, and his preventing an
officious vicar from saying the burial service. Harriet deletes these six
lines. The American public must not hear that the burial service is not
universally respected.
After years of this sort of puling imbecility one gets hot under the
collar and is perhaps carried to an extreme. Even so, Harriet is much less
an old maid than most American editors.
Other point, re centralization of power. Certainly, for execution of war
198
1 91 8— aetat 33
measures, power ought to be centralized, and you know that I am as much
opposed as anyone can be to any impediments to that. But this question of
having the whole of a nation's reading held up by one man has nothing
whatever to do with winning the war. It is a permanent state, for peace as
much as for war. I don't think your argument holds.
I agree with you, on the other hand, that the March number was too
'preoccupied.'
On the other hand (the suppositious and possible third hand), who is
there apart from the group of writers we are printing who is writing or can
write?
Thanks again for the cheque rec'd, and for going on getting guarantors
after you had made up your mind against it. I am more than sorry the
annoyances have come during the very time of your illness. Hope by the
time you get this that you will be again feeling fit.
Pardon the appalling length of this epistle. Also forgive its general
gloom and cantankerousness. After all, it is something to get Joyce,
Hueffer and Lewis into one number of one magazine.
Had a long letter from the father of all the Yeatsssssss a few weeks ago.
Will answer him when I get time to breathe.
154: To John Quinn
London, 15 November
Dear John Quinn: Will you accept the dedication of Pavannes and
Divisions} I had intended to wait until I had some more important book to
bear this dedication, but delays are not much in the nature of either of us,
and, moreover, you are more intimately connected and associated in the
making of Lustra and this book than you will be in future books, after
Knopf is trained, or after American publication of my stuff becomes more
or less routine.
If you accept the dedication, just have
To
John Quinn
put on the page after the sub-title or title page, and add beneath, if the
fancy takes you:
Americanus non moribus
unless you think the Americanus ought to be in the dative case. It is very
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hard to tell in case of mixing two languages whether to keep the Latin
uninflected. On the whole, Americano is probably better.
Wrong. Have looked up Dames' epistle to Can Grande. It should be:
Americano natione non moribus
Have been misquoting it for eight years.
M(aude) G(onne) (statement from herself) did hold a meeting in Dub-
lin to express sympathy with the Russian Bolsheviks, //'there had been
another rising I fail to see how she would have kept out of it, etc., etc.
She has no anti-German feelings, etc. She was released almost immedi-
ately (a day or two, or at most, I think, three, after the medical report was
made). The fact that she could not go to Ireland until the British had shot
MacBride had, of course, not entered her calculations.
Undoubtedly, Ireland tried to stab the Allies in the back, and was ready
for another try during the spring offensive.
And\ was ready to think Carson ought to be hung at the beginning of
the war. But I'm hanged if I see how Ireland can demand self-determina-
tion for herself at the same time she utterly refuses all thought of self-
determination for Ulster.
Etc., etc. Or why, being more or less of the party of the vanquished, she
expects the Allies to feel toward her as they do toward their carefully con-
stricted assistants in Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, etc.
Thank God, I don't have to settle it. Am afraid this letter does not
arrange its statements into very coherent order.
However, there aren't any 'details' to be cabled more than I sent in my
last. M.G. was under 'preventive arrest.' She was released on grounds of
ill health, not on grounds that she was a safe person to be at large or in
Ireland.
Personally, I don't think the release was obtained by a policy of worry-
ing officials. I think the health report did it on its merits, plus a little
amiable influence.
The wholesale preventive arrests surely prevented another rising, and
nothing else would have prevented it. Even now M.G. won't give any
assurance of good behaviour if permitted to return to Dublin.
Similar preventive arrests would have prevented the Easter rising.
I give it up. M.G. seems as able to ignore facts in politics as W.B.Y. does
when it comes to evidence of psychic phenomena.
I certainly should not write her permit to return if I were responsible for
order in Dublin. Though public order after a war is a very much less
important thing than public order during a great campaign.
Seagan was quite intelligent when she brought him from France but
19 1 8— aetat 33
the months in Ireland have ruined his mind and left him, as might be
expected at his age, doomed to political futilities. He is a walking give-
away of the real state of feeling there.
South Ireland certainly ought to be expelled from the Empire, but it is
such an infernally inconvenient naval base that !!!!!!!!!!
So far as I can make out, M.G.'s only constructive political idea is that
Ireland and the rest of the world should be free to be one large Donegal
fair. She now favours a 'republic,' but she was Boulangerist in France, and
I think they were once royalistic. Have all the Irish a monomania? M.G. is
'reasonable' to a point, just as Yeats is on psychism, but then there comes
the ... I suppose 'glamour.'
I believe the Zulus or Oceanic tribes make war by marching out in
companies and hurling invectives at each other by the hour.
As for the 'revolution,' we have had one here during the war; quite
orderly, in the extension of franchise. Nobody much minds there being
several more. But there remains the temperament that wants revolution
with violence; no special aim or objective, but just pure and platonic love of
a row.
Pacifists with lead-headed canes, etc.
The other point M.G. omits from her case is that she went to Ireland
without permit and in disguise, in the first place, during war time.
' Conservatrice des traditions Mil&ienne,' as de Gourmont calls them.
There are people who have no sense of the value of ' civilization' or public
order.
She is still full of admiration for Lenin. (I, on the other hand, have
talked with Russians.) The sum of it being that I am glad she is out of
gaol, and that I hope no one will be ass enough to let her get to Ireland.
Thank God the war is mostly over. Am suffering from cold contracted
on Monday, wandering about for hours, mostly in drizzle, to observe
effect of armistice on the populace.
The Allies will have to sit on the head of each individual German for the
next eighty years and take their indemnity a pfennig at a time.
P.S. I think the term ' fanatic' in my cable was the just one. M. does not
seem lunatic. But I notice with Yeats he will be quite sensible till some
question of ghosts or occultism comes up, then he is subject to a curious
excitement, twists everything to his theory, usual quality of mind goes. So
with M.G. For example, she twists the burning of the posters on the Nelson
column into an anti-monarchic demonstration. Says they were King's
Fund posters. Now, I happened to see the kids tearing off strips of that
canvas for the fun of burning something when their fireworks ran out.
Same way they burnt gun carriages a few nights later.
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M. wholly neglects the crowds cheering in front of Buckingham Palace,
or the general enthusiasm for George on his drive through the drizzle in an
open carriage, with no escort save a couple of cops. Poor devil was looking
happy, I should think, for the first time in his life. I happened to be in
Piccadilly about two feet from the carriage.
It is a great pity, with all her charm, that the mind twists everything
that goes into it, on this particular subject (just like Yeats on his ghosts).
Heaven knows, I may have a touch of it myself re Xtianity, but I try to
control it, and it is really a development of the belief that most of the
tyrannies of modern life, or a least a lot of stupidities, are based on Xtn
taboos, and can't really be got rid of radically until Xtianity is taken lightly
and sceptically, until, that is, it drifts back into the realm of fairy-lore and
picturesque superstition (mostly unpicturesque, at present).
I think the Theatre, Yeats, Synge and Company, had developed a wide
sympathy for Ireland, which the revolutionaries have wiped utterly away.
155: To Marianne Moore
London, 16 December
Dear Miss Moore: The confounded trouble is that I have come to the end
of my funds, and can not pay for any more mss. for The Little Review.
I think the poems too good to print without paying for them: I know
you have contributed to The Egoist unpaid. And I have myself done a deal
of unpaid work: too much of it.
I hope to start a quarterly here before long (part of the funds are in
hand); and to be able to pay contributors: at least to pay them something;
and to give them the satisfaction of being in good company. I will eidier
hold over your two poems for the quarterly and try to pay; or print them
in The L.R. ... as you choose or permit.
There are one or two details I should like to ask about. (Yeats and Eliot
and various other people have had similar queeries leveled at them, and our
friendships have weathered the strain, so don't take it ill of me.)
? Are you quite satisfied with the final cadence and graphic arrangement
of same in * A Graveyard ' ? The ends of the first two strophes lead into the
succeeding strophe, rightly. The ending
'it is
neither with volition nor consciousness 9
closes the thing to my ear. Perhaps you will find a more drastic change
suits you better. I do not offer an alternative as dogma or as a single and
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1918— aetat 33
definite possibility. Very likely you are after a sound-effect which escapes
me. But I don't quite see what it is, and I know that a critic often finds the
wrong point in a verse when he can not say why it is wrong, and when his
first proposals regarding it are useless.
Comme on est ridicule. I have copied your own order, instead of the
thing that came into my head this p.m., namely: 'Consciousness nor
volition.'
Hang'd if I now know which I thought better. But I think the eye
catches either cadence rather better if you break the line at is.
I haven't analysed the metric of the whole; but find it satisfactory.
I want to know, relatively, your age, and whether you are working on
Greek quantitative measures or on Rene Ghil or simply by ear (if so a very
good ear).
In 'Old Tiger':
I am worried by 'intentioned.' It is 'not English'; in French it is inten-
tionndy and I have no objection to gallicisms if done with distinction, and
obviously and intentionally gallicisms for a purpose. But 'intentioned' is
like a lot of words in bad American journalese, or like the jargon in philo-
sophical text-books. It is like a needless file surface (to me — and will upset
the natives here much more than it does me). You know, possibly, that I
don't mind the natives' feelings, but I think when giving offence one
should always be dead right, not merely defensible.
Pneumatic is le mot juste, but Eliot has just preempted it in Grishkin's
'pneumatic bliss.' This is not a final argument, but in so close a circle (you
are in it willy-nilly, by the mere fact of writing verse for the members of
the reading public capable of understanding). Also T.S.E. has jaguar'd —
quite differently, but still ... we must defend the camp against the outer-
damnations.
T.S.E. first had his housemaids drooping like the boas in my ' Millwins,'
and it was only after inquisition of this sort that he decided, to the im-
provement of his line, to have them sprout.
(Atque: I am rejecting imitators of T.S.E. who would be only too ready
to rend anyone they might think at their preserve.) In the words of W.L.
send us one to catch our fleas.
Do you want 'its self or 'itself at the end of 12 strophe? There is a
slight, or rather a very considerable, difference. Whether the tail has a
metaphorical 0t/#cij inside it.
And as for 'peacock': is it the best word? It means peacock-green???
Or peacock-blue or p.b. green? Peacock has feet and other colours such as
brown in its ensemble? ? ?
Also when you break words at end of line, do you insist on caps, at
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beginning of next line? Greeks didn't, nor does Ghil. Not categorical
inhibition, but ....
Now, to be more amiable, have you a book of verse in print? And, if
not, can I get one into print for you? My last and best work Proper tius has
just dodged two publishers, one of whom wants to print half the book,
leaving out the best of it. Dopo tarn* anni, I am not yet in the position of a
Van Dyke or a Tennyson; but still, I have got Joyce, and Lewis, and Eliot
and a few other comforting people into print, by page and by volume. At
any rate, I will buy a copy of your book if it is in print, and if not, I want
to see a lot of it all together. You will never sell more than five hundred
copies, as your work demands mental attention. I am inclined to think
you would 'go* better in bundles about the size of Eliot's Prufrock and
Observations.
For what it is worth, my ten or more years of practice, failure, success,
etc. in arranging tables of contents, is & votre service. Or at any rate unless
you have a definite scheme for a sequence, I would warn you of the very
great importance of the actual order of poems in a booklet. (I have gone
right and gone wrong in this at one time or another and know the results.)
Your stuff holds my eye. Most verse I merely slide off of (God I do ye
thank for this automatic selfprotection), but my held eye goes forward
very slowly, and I know how simple many things appear to me which
people of supposed intelligence come to me to have explained. — / — /
Thank God, I think you can be trusted not to pour out flood (in the
manner of dear Amy and poor Masters).
I wish I knew how far I am right in my conjecture of French influence;
you are nearer to Ghil than to Laforgue, whose name 1 think I used in The
Future. My note in the L.R. was possibly better.
O what about your age; how much more youngness is there to go into
the work, and how much closening can be expected ?
And what the deuce of your punctuation? I am puzzled at times: How
much deliberate, and therefore to be taken (by me) with studious meticu-
lousness?? How much the fine careless rapture and therefore to be pot-
shotted at until it assumes an wholly demonstrable or more obvious Tight-
ness????
Anyhow I will keep the poems for my quarterly unless you want to
have them rushed into the L.R. at once, and unless you have something
better for the Quarterly. No reason which they shouldn't appear simul-
taneously in both (only it will be the quarterly's proposed and hoped-for
purse that will pay).
And are you a jet black Ethiopian Othello-hued, or was that line in one
of your Egoist poems but part of your general elaboration and allegory
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19 1 8— aetat 33
and designed to differentiate your colour from that of the surrounding
menagerie?
I can't fit in the prose paragraph anywhere, so return it Or rather, no. I
will hold it and give it to the Egoist, if you so direct.
Do you see any signs of mental life about you in New York? I still
retain curiosities and vestiges of early hopes, though I doubt if I will ever
return to America, save perhaps as a circus.
How much of your verse is European? How much Paris is in it? This is,
I think, legitimate curiosity on my part. If I am to be your editor, and as I
am still interested in the problem of how much America can do on her
own. (Political divisions not mattering in the ultimate, but . . .)
I oughtn't to be too lazy to analyze your metric; but ... I very often
don't analyze my own until years after. . . . And time, and one's energy.
... At any rate, it is (yr. metric) a progress on something I (more or less,
so far as English goes) began. . . . Whether my beginnings had anything to
do with yr. metric is another matter. Only I am curious.
Syllabic, in stanzas, same shape per stanza.
1st work written A.D. ? ? ?
1 st work published ? ? ? ?
Answers not for publication in small biographical note, as used in
Tschaikago.
At any rate, the quarterly if it comes off offers you a spiritual roof or
habitation; question of its being domus, home, hearth, must be left to you.
Does your stuff 'appear' in America?
1 j 6: To Harriet Shaw Weaver
London, 17 December
Dear Miss Weaver: With the cost of printing soaring, and the Egoist
having to retrench at all points, as I understand it is, I do not feel that the
cost of keeping the type of this series standing, plus the probable cost of
printing the booklet, would be justified, or that the interest in the series is
likely to make the cash return sure enough to justify your reprinting it.
I mean to publish the stuff, without much revision, in my next prose
volume, anyhow. And if The Egoist has any money to spare I should
much rather see it go to printing a book like Prufrock, by some new poet.
I believe I have one in sight.
I don't mean Mike* Prufrock, but simply an interesting book of poems
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of that size. And the printing of it would be of more literary interest than a
reprint of these essays, which will ultimately be reprinted anyway.
They were hurriedly concluded during the week I thought I was to be
rushed out to Persia; I don't say they were spoiled but ... I don't on the
other hand feel them quite final.
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1919
157: To William Carlos Williams
London, 28 January
My Dear Old Sawbukk von Grump: How are your adenoids? Am
rejoicing in vacancy; prose collection 1 'finished', committed to the gaping
maw of the post office; and I freed of its weight. Haven't heard from you
since the pig died. — / — /
Lewis' new show opening Thursday, etc. Manning again in circulation.
All sorts of 'projects' artoliteresque in the peaceconferentialbolshevi-
kair. Switzerland bursting into Dadaique Manifestos re the nothingness of
the All.
Fat Madox Hueffer in last evening; Aldington at 'front,' educating
Tommies; Wadsworth and Lewis in town, more or less free.
I think it might be worth while for you to send me any mss. you have
by you; there are several schemes in the air re quarterly and re a weekly;
and something or other will probably start. There is the banked water of
several years during which paper restrictions forbade starting of new
periodicals; I think something will start. Can't yet say which or what; was
offered a salary two days ago; but that is too wild a fantasy. At any rate
shd. like to have some of your stuff by me in case of emergency. Mgr said
the first number of a weekly wd. appear in March . . . but words of
financiers...??
Am reprinting note on you from Future in next prose vol. which Knopf
says he is bringing out this autumn.
Did a longer note for an American paper which cut down its size on
receipt of article, which latter is still floating about in my progenitor's
possession. Don't know that you will like it; but I did go so far as to say
you weren't a matoid.
Are you capable of doing quarterly notes (1000 words say per three
months) on American publications???? Or is there anybody in the great
pure prohibition monarchy capable of writing brief summary criticism of
contemporary abortions ?
1 Instigations.
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158: To H. L. Mencken
London^ ({January)
Dear Mencken: Thanks for your Apologia pro Mulieribus. 1 It is so good
that even my belle-m&re, a charming memorial of the XVIIIth Century,
has read it with enjoyment.
What is wrong with it, and with your work in general is that you have
drifted into writing for your inferiors. . . . Inevitable I think where one is
in contact with a public.
When you escape . . . and the time now seemeth not so far distant, I
think you will begin your real work. (Damn'd cheek on my part to say
so?) Still, on the island of Patmos with no early Christians to exhort, your
style would solidify.
Am inclined to think the book the best of your stuff I have seen.
Have made by paragraph 2 fairly bald, but take it for what it is worth.
No use my flapping about with amiable inanities. We have all sinned
through trying to make the uneducated understand things. Certainly you
will lose a great part of your public when you stop trying to civilize the
waste places; and you will gain about fifteen readers.
'The first post bellum boat* ought to sail fairly soon now, and I hope
to see you as soon as mines have passed away. (O roll dem mines
ehway.)
159: To Marianne Moore
London, 1 February
The female is a chaos,
the male
is a fixed point of * stupidity ', but only the female
can content itself with prolonged conversation
with but one sole other creature of its own sex
and of its own unavoidable species
the male
is more expansive
and demands other and varied contacts;
1 In Defense of Women.
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19 19 — aetat 33
hence its combativeness,
hence its discredit for * taking up cudgels*
hence its utter failure to receive credit
for the ninety and nine unjust times
when it refrained from taking up cudgels
andtfas done in the eye
by the porcine and uncudgeled circumbelliferous;
hence,
the debacle of its temper,
hence,
its slow recovery and recuperance from the y alter janders
hence also its more widespread insistencies,
hence its exposure to stings and mud-slings of the
ungodly and unco-decorous
etc. and ad infinitum
1— 1—
Zagreus at the door of the parsonage,
Keeping a carbon copy. * We must not*
writes a contemporary Church of England theological author
1 give up Parthenogenesis; it is the outpost of Incarnation *
((Custer's last fight for the Trinity/
Eight inch sans-serif on the posters
' O gawddeont dew bi^niss thaat waye! '))
' St. Paul was a Gentleman 9
* no reflection
on the habits of your particular family
but they are not alone in their clerical functions. I have seen
Savonarola still swinging a crucifix,
down from Said for the week-end of exhorting
the back-sliders of Venice; and the Reverend Cavaliere Dottore
Alessandro
Robertson denouncing the Babylonian woman
and the Rrrroman releegion
with fervour::: O my Christ with fervour and sincerity
and conviction. I have seen
the inhibitions of seventeen sects
and the dangers of national internationalism, Eloi, Eloi.
(Also Voltaire on the Elohim)
and the wilderness will not be healed
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either byfletcherbpng or by a diet of locusts.
Splendours of vintages;
Guido in accented iambics*
Ch&re Marianne: So much for the Muses (precedent).
The rest of your statements are 'satisfactory.' No one could be 'wholly
in sympathy' with The Little Review any more than I could be wholly in
sympathy with Lewis: my only contention is that genius ought to exist,
and that all publications should not exclude it.
I also made early attempts at that desiccation The Atlantic. Even The
Egoist would not have been there, i.e., attending to contemporary poetry
or printing your works save but for my cudgels. And I have got some
decent stuff into print: The Portrait of the Artist, and other things.
As Richard said only six weeks ago (re Poetry): 'It's that on the cover
that has beaten you. If you could have got that off (the silly quotation
third-truth from Whitman) you could have made something of it.'
Now, one buys leisure to work by selling one's stuff for what one can.
Harriet (Monroe) is too old to learn. Thank heaven I have conducted
some of her funds to a few authors who needed emolument.
I have repeatedly resigned. And it took a six months' struggle to get her
to print Eliot's 'Prufrock.'
I have nothing but my name on the cover. And the prospects of a very
mutilated piece of my Propertius appearing in her paper, because it would
be criminal for me to refuse £10/10; and because it don't matter. It don't
matter in the least what appears or does not appear in that magazine. The
elect will see, ultimately, the English publication of the series.
(All of which is for your ear and no other. The woman is honest, and
can not help her obfuscations.)
American painting and sculpture are proportionately no better than
American writing, only painters are comparatively unknown, i.e., all the
creators of new expression. They have a chance to make almost fortunes,
but they lead private and secret careers (you can't lead a career, but
passons). Their works exist almost in secret.
You are probably right in so far as American imitators of earlier (1880)
European painters are more thorough than American authors (don't
know). Must let it alone (I must). Must return to the unconcern with
U.S.A. that I had before 191 1-12.
Private life, i.e. seclusion, 'possible* in America; public, or printed,
existence impossible. Etc.
Shall probably want to print 'Scalpels' here also. Pre-publication in
B.M. Lantern no deterrent.
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?? Whether both it and predestined carrot haven't weak endings.
Attention to strophic shape??? Kept your eye off main structure??? This
merely a caution or instigation.
Statement possibly firmer than a question at end of ' Scalpels.'
Will not give hurried 'judgment' about your revisions in other poems.
Must think them over.
Definiteness of your delineations is delicious, in all the austerity of that
much abused term. Can't have it lost. Must go on with it, you must. Thank
God you don't tend to burble or to produce ' four epics' in one vol. as per
last ad. of Amy.
(Was disappointed with the poem in L.R.; ergo relieved on receipt of
your paragraph regarding it.) Etc.
160: To A. R. Orage 1
London, {? April)
Dear A.R.O.: Here is the slam. The Chicago Tribune cut it somewhat but
not in essentials. My points being:
That there was never any question of translation, let alone literal trans-
lation. My job was to bring a dead man to life, to present a living figure.
As a Prof, of Latin and example of why Latin poets are not read, as
example of why one would like to deliver poets of philologers, Hale should
be impeccable and without error. He has no claim to refrain from suicide
if he errs in any point.
(Don't imagine this is any use.)
i. He ignores English.
' Their Punic faces dyed in the Gorgon 9 s lake*
one of my best lines. Punic (Punicus) used for dark red, purple red by
Ovid and Horace as well as Propertius. Audience familiar with Tyrian for
purple in English. To say nothing of augmented effect on imagination by
using Punic (whether in translation or not) instead of red.'
i. Hale pretends to read Latin, but has apparently never understood any-
thing but syntax and never seen the irony of Propertius, this from general
tone of his note.
1 This letter was first written to A. R. Orage, with the note 'You might save
this for me'. At a later date the letter was redirected as follows: 'Dear E.W.
<?Ernest Walsh): Here is the attack, and here are some points I pointed at the
time ere I reflected that it was scarcely suitable for me to do so/
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3. As for * trace of decadent meaning': he writes as if intending to con-
vey meaning that it is not in Propertius.
Does the Drive to Lanuvium contain trace of gentle raillery to be found
in my 'distortion' of the ' tacta puella'?
4. Precisely what I do not do is to translate the in as if it negatived the
solito. IF I was translating, I (would) have translated solito (accustomed)
by a commentary, giving * when they have got over the strangeness* as an
equivalent, or rather emphasis of 'accustomed.' Absolutely the contrary of
taking my phrase, as the ass Hale does, for the equivalent of unaccustomed.
He can't read English.
5. Re the ' punic' faces. It may instruct Hale to tell him that the Teubner
text (printed 1898) uses Punica with a cap. P, especially emphasizing the
Latin usage of proper name in place of a colour adjective. I.e., the Teubner
editor is emphasizing a Latinism which I have brought over. He is not
allowing the connection of the proper name with a particular dark red to
drift into a uncapitalized adjective.
6. Mask of erudition is precisely what I have not assumed; it is precisely
what I have thrown on the dust heap.
Re decadence: We all know Propertius went to mid-week prayer
meeting.
And as for accuracy, what are we to say to the bilge of rendering
'puella' by the mid- Victorian pre-Raphaelite slush of romanticistic 'my
lady'?
What of Propertius' delicate use of 'nostra,' meaning 'my' as well as
'our,' but in a stylist how delicately graduated against 'mihi' by Proper-
tius. Heine's poem ending, 'Madame, ich Hebe Sie' is clumsy in com-
parison.
Do him the justice to say that the bloody Marcian aquaduct is very very
familiar, and that it was a thing I might very well have remembered. That
is, confess to forgetting something as familiar to Romans as the Croton
damm is to New Yorkers. But even the Croton damm may be forgotten in
eternity.
Also old brute only saw 1, 2, 3, and 6. But his plaidoyer for translation
of letter and deathdealing to the spirit needs kicking.
Real poetry!!! Gosh. Look at that Bohn 'Marcian flow.' Exactly the
phrase Propertius wd. have used if living today and writing English (not
'arf).
If possible 1 shd. even have wished to render a composite character,
including something of Ovid, and making the portrayed figure not only
Propertius but inclusive of the spirit of the young man of the Augustan
Age, hating rhetoric and undeceived by imperial hog-wash.
1919 — aetat 33
P.S. On closer inspection of the full text as in Poetry •, I find he is worse
than in the Tribune which was all I had really read before I began to write
this for you.
I note that my translation 'Devirginated young ladies' etc. is as literal,
or rather more so than his. I admit to making the puella (singular) into
plural 'young ladies.' It is a possible figure of speech as even the ass
admits. Hale, however, not only makes the ' girl ' into ' my lady/ but he has
to supply something for her to be ' touched by' Instead of allowing her to be
simply tacta (as opposed to virgo intactd), he has to say that she is touched
(not, oh my god, no not by the of the poet, but by 'my
words'). Vide his own blessed parentheses.
If I were, however, a professor of Latin in Chicago, I should probably
have to resign on divulging the fact that Propertius occasionally copulavit,
i.e. rogered the lady to whom he was not legally wedded.
161: To John Quinn
London, 25 October
Dear Quinn: Quia Pauper Amavi is at last out. Eliot has done a dull but, I
think, valuable puff in the Athenaeum] granite wreaths, leaden laurels, no
sign of exhilaration; but I daresay it is what is best in that quarter.
He has shown in earlier articles the 'English Department* universitaire
attitude: literature not something enjoyable, but something which
your blasted New England conscience makes you feel you ought to
enjoy.
Have had two opulent weeks as dramatic critic on The Outlook, and
have been fired in most caddish possible manner. Have had my work
turned down by about every editor in England and America, but have
never before felt a desire for vengeance. Circumstances too dull to narrate;
but if you do see a chance for doing that rotten paper, its editor or owners,
an ill turn I hope you will do so, in memoriam.
Orage is, of course, willing to do anything he can for me. I don't know
whether there is any way of increasing his U.S. A. circulation. He is ready
to give me two pages a week for myself. I had, as a matter of fact, three
things in last issue; only he simply hasn't the funds to pay like the punk
papers. And one simply can't afford to rewrite and properly compress stuff
for his rates.
ai3
London
France is worse. The Mercure pays 4 francs per page for prose and
nothing for verse.
Have just done an article, by request, for France-Amirique; pay better
than the Mercure, at any rate.
Vanderpyl offers me space in LArbitraire, but it will cost him heavily
to print English in Paris, and he has no funds for contributors. I can't see
the thing as practical.
One Desfeuilles is very enthusiastic about Noh and wants to translate
it; but I don't make out whether he has a publisher or whether the pub-
lisher * would like to publish but .'
Lewis* portrait of me was on the way to being excellent when I last saw
it; have not seen the final form of it yet, but hope to at the Goupil.
Nina Hamnett has greatly improved. Great persistence for a female.
Last ms. chapter of Joyce perhaps the best thing he has done. I don't
mean the last one to appear in Little Review, but the one I have just for-
warded. Parody of styles, a trick borrowed from Rabelais, but never done
better, even in Rab.
Our James is a grrreat man. I hope to God there is a foundation of truth
in the yarn he wrote me about a windfall. Feel he may have done it just to
take himself off my mind.
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1920
i6i: To T. E. Lawrence
London, 20 April
My Dear Hadji ben Abt el Bakshish, Prince de Mecque, Two-S worded
Samurai, Old Bird, Young Bird, Magister (?) Artium, etc. et quid tibi
licet, libet, decet, lubet, etc.: Thou hast in thee an exceeding hot, intemper-
ate, swift and precipitate manner of judging thy fellowe men, and in the
present case mightest have weighed against six or eight pages of BLAST
the dozen or more volumes and thousand or more scattered pages of my
other labours and opusculi.
The Dial is an aged and staid publication which I hope, rather rashly, to
ginger up to something approaching the frenetic wildness of The
Athenaeum. They are much more afraid of me than you are.
Also I don't care a saffron .... whether you use your own name or not;
only if you don't you will be under the shameful and ignominious neces-
sity of writing something which will interest the editor.
Can you * write ' ? Of course, having vortex'd a large section of Arabia
you are fed up with vortices; but why reprove me, who have merely
created a market for one or two artists and got a half dozen good books
into print despite John Murray, Sir G. Macmillan e questa puttazaia?
, When you say you want to write for money, what do you mean
4 money' ? Lord Macaulay's rates or the fees I pick up by force of necessity
to pay my rent? The latter can't be called 'money', but if you want to
sweat in an abysmally paid profession I think I can supply you with two
London editors who wouldn't insist on your using your cinema sign.
In sending copy to America, let me caution you to use an incognito as
well as a pseudonym. Thayer is, I think, quite decent (he is The Dial), but
I trust an American publication about as far as I wd. trust a British govern-
ment; my bright compatriots are quite capable of printing an article by
Mr. Smith and then printing a leetle note at the end of the number saying
4 The article by Mr. Smith is really written by the distinguished Sheik-
tamer and Tiger-baiter etc., who for reasons of modesty has concealed
himself 'neath the ridiculous name of Smith- Yapper.'
If you want to write about Arabia, I cd. simply write to N.Y. that I was
«5
London
getting copy from the one man who knows, or you cd. get a written pro-
mise from Thayer not to reveal your identity. I shd. prefer not to be instru-
mental in publishing anything likely to incite either Moslems or Xtns. to
further massacres etc.
The songs of the desert might be safer. My notes on Elizabethan
Classicists are considered 'too technical' for the Dial readers.
I have just taken the job and can't, Pm afraid, give you much indication
of what they do want, save that I am asked to provide 'em with Mrs.
Meynell, Lowes Dickinson, Lytton Strachey, Yeats, Eliot, myself in
homeopathic (very) doses, etc.
Hope to see you in August if not before. Shall be back here in Aug.
Suppose you'll have spent your quarterly allowance and retired to Oxford
by then.
163: To John Quinn
Paris, 19 June
Dear John Quinn: I came out of Italy on a tram-car, and reckon the next
man will come out in a cab.
Joyce finally got to Sirmione; don't yet know whether he has got back
to Trieste. Strike started half an hour after I got to Milan, and many trains
stopped where they were at the stroke of 12.
Joyce — pleasing; after the first shell of cantankerous Irishman, I got the
impression that the real man is the author of Chamber Music, the sensitive.
The rest is the genius; the registration of realities on the temperament, the
delicate temperament of the early poems. A concentration and absorption
passing Yeats' — Yeats has never taken on anything requiring the conden-
sation of Ulysses.
Also great exhaustion, but more constitution than I had expected, and
apparently good recovery from eye operation.
He is coming up here later; long reasons, but justified in taking a rest
from Trieste.
He is, of course, as stubborn as a mule or an Irishman, but I failed to
find him at all unreasonable. Thank God, he has been stubborn enough to
know his job and stick to it.
Re his personal arrangements, etc., all seems clear in light of conver-
sation.
He is also dead right in refusing to interrupt his stuff by writing stray
*i6
192a— aetat 34
articles for cash. Better in the end, even from practical point of view. Also
justified in sticking it out in Trieste, at least for the present. Both climate
and other considerations.
In the stories of his early eccentricities in Dublin, I have always thought
people neglected the poignant feature, i.e., that his 'outrageous* remarks
were usually so.
His next work will go to the Dial, but he should rest after Ulysses.
Linati, translator of Synge and Joyce, is to send Italian notes to Dial and
beat up contributors. He seems sensible. Don't expect very much from
Italy. Or from Spain. Have just written to Unamuno.
Here I suspect the war is still effective. Impression the people are being
affable to each other (in literary circles) in hope of maintaining the illusion
that Paris is still the hub of the universe. However, have only been here
3 days and may yet dig up something of mild interest.
After Gaudier, Lewis, Joyce, one wants something a bit meaty to excite
one.
164: To James Joyce
London, (? June)
Dear Joyce: I enclose letter from Quinn, which you need not of neces-
sity read. Point is that 'Nausikaa' has been pinched by the po-lice. Only
way to get Ulysses printed in book form, will be to agree not to print any
more of it in the L.R.
I had already made this suggestion on other ground, namely that the
expensive private edition planned by Quinn wd. have wider sale if it con-
tained final chapters which had not already appeared in L.R.
Also in Paris I did, I think, explain to you that M.A. and jh had not
spent any money on you. I got the original trifle that was sent you, and the
printing deficits were paid by J.Q., and in general the editrices have merely
messed and muddled, never to their own loss.
The best thing to do, now that things have come to present pass, is to
turn the whole matter over to Quinn. He is on the spot and both will and
can deal with local conditions better than we can from here.
The excuse for parts of Ulysses is the whole of Ulysses; the case for
publication of bits of it serially is weak; the editrices having sent copy to
someone who hadn't asked for it further weakens case.
Anyhow, the only thing to be done now is to give Quinn an absolutely
217
London
free hand. His cable address is QUINLEX, New York; and you will have
to cable your full authorization to him at once if it is to arrive in time.
QUINLEX
New York
As you have said — ' No country outside of Africa' wd. permit it.
\6y. To Hugh Walpole
London j 30 June
But Bleeding Christ! Mr. Walpole: That is precisely what you shouldn't
have done; and which if you didn't you shouldn't dash my hopes by pro-
fessing to have accomplished.
The Dial (or the past months has been too confounded dull to be born,
it has been no better than the London Mercury or the Athenaeum or a
dozen and one of these other mortuaries for the entombment of dead fecal
mentality.
One hopes, with a flicker aroused by my past month in Paris (as witness
the opposite column of names) to have in time a paper which an intelli-
gent being can read.
And in the hope that your politeness has got the better of your candid
opinion, I shall be very glad if you help in labour of making it so. Only do
make it suitable to the 1.920-2 1 Dial, not to last year's or last month's.
With of course the damn'd postal censorship of the U.S. as a limit to
vocabulary; I don't mean that sex is an asset either.
166: To James Joyce
London, {f July)
Dear James: News item or rather phrase of conversation from ex-govt.
official: 'The censorship was very much troubled by it (Ulysses) during
die war. Thought it was all code.'
167: To T. E. Lawrence
London, {? August)
Dear T.E.L.: Being neither a Christian, nor an Oxonian, nor even an
Englishman, the idea that people 'ought not to exist on one earth* merely
because they differ one from the other is strange to me.
218
192a— aetat 34
Doubtless you have very bad taste; not that I mind the romantic, or
even the academic and idyllic, if they can be found free of mental paralysis.
Still ... I have already sent over to N. Y. one hundred delicious pages of
Manning, which I hope will in due course be printed; and Conrad has said
he will probably send on something some day or other, but has too many
unfilled promises hanging over him to make any more; and two stories (or
somethings) by D. H. Lawrence have been accepted . . . through no parti-
cular fault of my own save that I asked Aldington to ask D.H.L. to send
'em in.
And Aldington gets steadily worse because he writes in the Times every
week. What can be expected !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (these by request, as you'd
feel lonely if I didn't use 'em, in order that the skripture shd. be fillfulled).
I suppose I'd even print Hodgson (whom I like personally very
much) . . . chief danger wd. be going to sleep between here and the pillar-
box if I had a ms. of his in my hand. Tel est le pouvoir. . . .
Is Yeats any worse than the last volume of Conrad's?
As for idyllic and romantic — thought they were W.B.Y.'s particular
line. Howsomever!
168: To James Joyce
London, 2 August
My dear Joyce: You are probably cursing me for not taking more direct
action. I enclose both Huebsch and another epistle, i.e. from Athenaeum to
myself, re what shd. have been my chief local asset, and which was (fu) my
chief cash reason for return to this brass-bound clay-hummock.
Kindly return same. Modest mensuality amounting roughly to £ 120
per annum. Of course I shall welcome the leisure.
Equally of course I never had the faintest belief in Huebsch paying
£££ advance on mss. he hadn't seen; whatever he or anyone else might
have written about it.
Re your letter before last. I shall take it as an extremely unfriendly act if
you instruct your damn solicitors to do anything of the sort; which wd. be
pure imbecility on the one hand, you being sure to need the cash three
weeks later; and damn'd unpleasant of you on the other, as I should like to
make at least that small contribution to the running expenses of Ulysses.
If you find your circle kantankerrrrous, you might also reflect upon the
fact that Murray wrote me two letters while I was in Paris, and might con-
219
London
ceivably have included in one of them the news so amiably conferred in
his of 27th ult., as it wd. have only 'ave clouded the last Parisian hours.
I don't on the hole despair of hitting another couple of small bunches
between now an* Sept. 25.
Rodker was delighted to see you, but his wife is in an interestin' con-
dition and I suppose they are savin' for the layette. However, he offers to
give an imprint to Ulysses if the Egoist will provide the £ for the actual
printing somewhere else, which may possibly be a solution, though I think
American printing is the most economical way out of the difficulty. By
printing near the sea-board the work can be legally exported.
Eliot leaves for France, via Paris, on about Aug. 15.
169: To James Joyce
London, 1 September
Dear Joyce: (You can forward this note to Dr. Ferrieri.) 1 strongly re-
commend that Rodker be asked to do the article on English literature.
There are only a very few decent critics with ' tendenze moderne.' Neither
Hueffer nor Eliot are to be had free, and both are very busy. I have
recently said my say in Instigations besides doing articles on state of litera-
ture in England for French and Spanish magazines. Rodker will take more
trouble, and be more interested in writing the article than any of the rest of
us.
Dr. Ferrieri's article has been translated I think quite well, I will know
when it comes back from the typist, as I can't be expected to read hand-
writing, life is too short. Am sending the article to New York as soon as it
comes in from typist.
Regards to Sig. Ferrieri and Linati.
Hope your news is all good.
170: To William Carlos Williams
[The three Utters following were written on receipt of Williams 9 Kora in
Hell: Improvisations, in the* Prologue' to which Williams writes that Pound
is % the best enemy United States verse has' Indeed, the entire prologue is an
attack, through Williams, by the American school as then represented by him-
220
1920— aetat 34
self, Sandburg, Bodenheim and Kreymborg on the international school, as
represented by Pound and Eliot* It is, perhaps, the best American attack on
' exoticism ' in letters.]
London, 1 1 September
My dear old Hugger-scrunch: Un po' di giustizia ! ! Or rather: you're a
liar. Precisely I am an 'enemy of American verse.'
That I sweated like a nigger to break up the clutch of the old
Harper's, etc. That I tried to enlighten Chicago, so as to make
a place for the real thing. That I sent over French models, which have
given six hundred people a means of telling something nearer the truth
than they would have done senza. That I imported U.S. stuff here, to the
prejudice of my own comfort (remember I have only what I get by my
pen).
And on the contrary, some evidence that I have ever cursed anything
but the faults of American verse. Produce it, you old village cut-up.
That Jep. is not a fountain of wisdom I admit, but he was a good bolus
(or a bad bolus). 1 But at any rate there was no one else whose time wasn't
too valuable to waste on trying to penetrate Harriet's crust. That silly old
she-ass with her paeons for bilge . . . not, , that she matters,
but every page of the magazine that goes to bad stuff is just that much lost
to honest work.
You lay back, you let me have the whole stinking sweat of providing
the mechanical means for letting through the new movement, i.e. scrap for
the mot juste, for honest clear statement in verse. Then you punk out,
cursing me for not being in two places at once, and for 'seeing no alterna-
tive to my own groove.' 2 Which is bilge, just sloppy inaccurate bilge. And
you can * take it back' when you get round to doing so.
You get various people who might be honest, who might do a bit of
1 Edgar Jepson (vide Letters No. 151 and 1 52, p. 194) had written an attack on
the Poetry (Chicago) prizes, especially those of 1916 and had used such terms as
'cumbrous artificiality', 'lumbering fakement', and 'slip-shod, rank bad work-
manship of a man who has shirked his job' in describing the work of Vachel
Lindsay, Constance Lindsay Skinner and others. But his main argument wa6
that such work was nothing new; Eliot's work, however, he saw as something
new in American poetry. Williams then indicates that Eliot is only a rehash of
Verlaine, Baudelaire and Maeterlinck and Pound of Provence and modern
French: 'Men content with the connotations of their masters.'
2 'I praise those who have the wit and courage, and the conventionality, to go
direct toward their vision of perfection in an objective world where the signposts
are already marked, viz., to London. But confine them in hell for their paretic
assumption that there is no alternative but their own groove.' Kora in Hell, p. 25.
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London
good work, flattered to hell like Masters, or pouring their stuff into leaky
jars for want of someone to tell 'em to plug the leaks, and then when I do,
you say I am a plugger, and that I plug, and that left to myself I would
plug the mouth of the jar before the booze is put in, and vend the vacuous
earthenware.
Not that I care a curse for any nation as such or that, so far as I know, I
have ever suggested that I was trying to write U.S. poetry (any more than
you are writing Alexandrine Greek bunk, to conform to the ideas of that
refined, charming, and utterly narrow minded she-bard ' H.D.').
Neither do I have the spinsterly aversion k la Marianne from tutto che
nonmepiace. 1
Can be, on the other hand, quite as stubborn as you are; if choose to
write about decaying empire, will do so, and be damned to you. But can't
see that it constitutes enmity to your work or to that of anyone else who
writes honestly, whether in U.S. or Nigeria.
Amy Lowell's perfumed would be putrid even if it had been
done by a pueblo Indian, or written on the highest pinnacle of Harriet's
buggerin rocky mts.
It is curious, that with the relics of what I suppose was not [sic] a scien-
tific education you can't understand the spirit of research; even research
into something so dead as a complicated aesthetic of sound . . . which ain't
dead in the least, though I dare say the canzone is too mummified to walk
on its pins ever again.
Also whether I am better alive here, or dead, as I should have been from
starvation if I hadn't had the remains of primitive animal instinct to 'run'
... is a problem which you can answer ace. cons.
Have I ever, on the other hand, tried to pass ofFEng. punk on my com-
patriots? Have I sent you the dry dung of the Georgians, or the wet dung
of the London Murkury ?
Have you the adumbrations of intelligence enough to know that the
critical faculty which can pick you and Bodenheim, and Loy, and Sand-
burg (and in earlier phases Frost) out of the muck of liars and shams is of
some use even to poetry in a country so utterly cursed by every
god of the pantheon as to have Woody Wilson for its 'choice,' and indi-
vidual liberty slowly growing illegal. If you weren't stupider than a mud-
duck you would know that every kick to bad writing is by that much a
help for the good.
When did I ever, in enmity, advise you to use vague words, to shun the
1 This refers to Marianne Moore's statement to Williams: 'My work has come
to have just one quality of value in it: I will not touch or have to do with those
things which I detest.' Kora in Hell, p. 1 2.
222
192a— aetat 34
welding of word and thing, to avoid hard statement, word close to the
thing it means?
But I don't care a fried about nationality. Race is probably
real. It is real.
And you might in fairness have elaborated my quotation on virus. 1
There is a blood poison in America; you can idealize the place (easier now
that Europe is so damd shaky) all you like, but you haven't a drop of the
cursed blood in you, and you don't need to fight the disease day and night;
you never have had to. Eliot has it perhaps worse than I have — poor devil.
You have the advantage of arriving in the milieu with a fresh flood of
Europe in your veins, Spanish, French, English, Danish. You had not the
thin milk of New York and New England from the pap; and you can
therefore keep the environment outside you, and decently objective.
With your slower mental processes, your later development, you
are very likely, really of a younger generation; at least of a younger
couche.
Different from my thin logical faculty. And, thank god, from Harriet's
blow (really the gaseous American period of the generation or two before
me . . . bluff. . . throwing the bull, town prospecting, etc.).
And now that there is no longer any intellectual life in England save
what centres in this eight by ten pentagonal room; now that Rimy and
Henry are gone and Yeats faded, and no literary publication whatever
extant in England, save what ' we ' print (Egoist and Ovid Press), the ques-
tion remains whether I have to give up every shred of comfort, every
scrap of my personal life, and 'gravitate' to a New York which wants me
as little now as it did ten and fifteen years ago. Whether, from the medical
point of view it is masochism for me even to stay here, instead of shifting
to Paris. Whether self-inflicted torture ever has the slightest element of
dignity in it?
Or whether I am Omar.
Have I a country at all . . . now that Mouquin is no more, and that your
father has no more goldwasser, and the goldwasser no obescent bon-
homme to pour it out for me?
Or you who sees no alternative?
All of which is, as you have divined, in relation to your prologue. I will
get on to the Improvisations (for which many thanks) later.
Have written to Dial that you are the best thing in the country. Can you
keep up some push of American stuff— you, Bodenheim, Sandburg,
Hecht, Sher. Anderson, etc ?
1 In his * Prologue' Williams had quoted a part of Pound's letter of 10 Novem-
ber 1917. See Letter No. 137, p. 180.
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London
I really can't do the whole show. Besides I am not supposed to run the
American end.
If you want to honour the country, a la your pathriotism, you people
who have some guts ought to crowd such whiffle as ' Songs of the Pueblo
Indians' by A.L. out of the international envoy ( (Dial, > Sept. p. 247).
171: To William Carlos Williams
London, 1 1 September
Deer Bull: Got at far as p. 68. All that can be expected of middle-aged
European in one day.
Inclined to think it best you have done. Don't know that it is more
incoherent than Rimbaud's Saison en Enfer; nor yet that it could be im-
proved by being more intelligible. Still, am inclined to think it is pro-
bably most effective where most comprehensible.
The italics at any rate don't detract. Not that they, in many cases, much
explain the matter either. Nor sure that you would lose much or anything
by still further exposition. Not on other hand suggesting that clear Mau-
passant modus would serve your every turn.
Re the dialog, with your old man, 1 which I don't bloody remember . . .
remember we did talk about 'Und Drang' 2 but there the sapphires cer-
tainly are not anything but sapphires, perfectly definite visual imagina-
tion. However, upshot (which you don't, certainly, imply) is that your old
man was certainly dead right. And that whatever t'ell I said ten years ago,
I certainly have since then endeavoured c to why in the hell or heaven' say
it and not summat else ... to the whatever t'ell improvement of my what-
ever t'ell style or modus.
1 'My parent had been holding forth in downright sentences upon my own
"idle nonsense" when he turned and became equally vehement concerning
something Ezra had written: what in heaven's name Ezra meant by "jewels" in a
verse that had come between them. These jewels — rubies, sapphires, amethysts
and what not, Pound went on to explain with great determination and care, were
the backs of books as they stood on a man's shelf. "But why in heaven's name
don't you say so then?" was my father's triumphant and crushing rejoinder/
KorainHell y p. 13.
f This series appears in Can^oni. The reference here is to the seventh poem of
the series, 'The House of Splendour':
And I have seen her there within her house
With six great sapphires hung along the wall . . .
224
192a— aetat 34
possibly lamentable that the two halves of what might have made a
fairly decent poet should be sequestered and divided by the — —
buttocks of die arse-wide Atlantic Ocean.
If I was as ornery in my clear verse as you are in yourn, I'd be up before
the beak. ... 1 wonder why Lamar lets you thru and pinches
the innocent Joyce (non-conformist parson from Aberdeen) while you . . .
(*ohe ma-ma' as ma chfcre Xelezine would remark under similar . . .) vari-
ant 'Mum-my/
Will say that the cover design is at any rate purr-fectly clear. Wholly
definite indication of the spirit of the woik as a hole (Even there, the lay-
man's ignorance. ... Is there any occult significance in the black eggs?)
Not sure Gaudier oughtn't have dedicated the first post-Xtn bust of
the century to your rather than to my liberator. Le gracieux et souple
rhythme de Properce fait croire a un fleuve ou a une berge plutot qu'a. un
chfine. (mummy)
If any one has patience enough to read I think the book does manage to
convey general sense of what you are meaning . . . more one can not ask,
perhaps. Problem (not five minute problem): would more 3rd person,
objective statement . . . etc . . . Oh hell . . . dare say it wouldn't.
Anyhow blaze away, and more power to your elbow. Don't listen to
anyone else, and above all don't listen to me.
Should welcome your candid re both Homage to S. Prop, and Mauberley
if you have the texts. Nobody tells me anything about 'em that I don't
know already (and that they usually tell me a rebours) all except
who says ... in confirmation of the remark on lunar ellipses, etc. that
Callimachus is too much, and that the Rubaiyat is properly annotated.
And when I think where I found her.
I must cross the proper names out of this, as you're such a devil for
printin' one's private affairs.
172: To William Carlos Williams
London , 12 Septembei
Voui, mon vieux coco: Another point re parodies, Iangue d'oc, etc 1 To
be * historic,' the 'Homage Iangue d'oc' was the first thing hit upon by
L'Intransigeant as supposedly of popular interest to the populous French
1 *I do not overlook De Gourmont's plea for a meeting of the nations, but I
do believe that when they meet Paris will be more than slightly abashed to find
parodies of the middle ages, Dante and Langue d'Oc foisted upon it as the best
in United States poetry.' Kora in Hell, p. 28.
P 225
London
public. That's nothing, proves only that populous French are insular, like
to think their country is noticed, etc. No importance.
But what the French real reader would say to your Improvisations is
Voui, s(h)a j(h)ai d6]k (f )vu s(h)a s(h)a c'est de R(h)imb(h)aud ! !
So much for your kawnscious or unkawnscious. I certainly never put up
translations of Provenjal as 'American'; and Eliot is perfectly conscious of
having imitated Laforgue, has worked to get away from it, and there is
very little Laforgue in his Sweeney, or his Bleistein Burbank, or his
'Gerontion,' or his Bay State hymn book. And in fact you are talking
through your hat when you suggest that I at any time was ever ass enough
to have picked 'La Figlia* for the fantastic occasion you hypothecate. 1
Masters is not as good as Jammes' Existences. Your 'representative
American* verse will be that which can be translated in foreign languages
without appearing ridiculous to us after it has been 'accepted,' and which
will appear new to the French or Hun or whatever. Pas de bile.
P.S. Of course, for me to say 'you're another' is no argument — it's only
drawing attention to the vitreous nature of your facade on observing the
bricks you heave at my conservatory.
173: To Agnes Bedford
London, October
Kattegorrikaly damn the woman. I refuse to spoil one of the best bits of
Provenjal by making a rush crib in twenty minutes to order. Meaning is
all tied up with sound.
First strophe is about new leaves and flowers bring back fragrance to
the heart.
Second — insomnia — due to natural cause usual at the season.
Then — where man's treasure is there will his heart be also.
Then — and if I see her not, no sight is worth the beauty of my thought
— which is the trouvaille — can't spoil it by botched lead up.
There is no literal translation of a thing where the beauty is melted into
the original phrase. Tell the brute to take a literal photo of the Venus de
Milo.
1 'Imagine an international congress of poets at Paris or Versailles, Remy de
Gourmont (now dead), presiding, poets all speaking five languages fluently.
Ezra stands up to represent U.S. verse and De Gourmont sits down smiling.
Ezra begins by reading "La Figlia che Piange". It would be a pretty pastime to
father with a mental basket the fruits of that reading from the minds of die ten
renchmen present; their impressions of the sort of United States that very fine
flower was picked from.' Kora in Hell, p. 28.
226
PART II: PARIS
1921
174-' To William Carlos Williams
St. Raphael, 2 February
Deer Bull: Yours of Jan. 10 to hand. Dopo tarn* anni (16), I can not pri-
ciser any address in Dock (?) St. or other. Any studio I was ever in was
probably that of some friend or relative of Will Smith, who avoided a very
unpleasant era of American life by dying of consumption to the intimate
grief of his friends. How in Christ's name he came to be in Phila. — and to
know what he did know at the age of 17-25 — I don't know. At any rate,
thirteen years are gone; I haven't replaced him and shan't and no longer
hope to.
Apart from his friends', it might have been a studio of a middle-aged
friend of Maturin Dondo's.
Re travel. I rather want to take a solid year in Paris. But if 'they say'
anything solid — i.e. expenses guaranteed and ??? (couple) of thousand
(??? £) $ over, i.e. guarantee of leisure for a year after the whirlwind cam-
paign — I will listen to the stern voice of duty and save as much of the
country as is ready to be snatched from the yawning maw of gum shoes,
Y.M.C. A., Chubb, e tutti quanti.
I had rather you came to Paris, but should be glad of i further informa-
tion.' I went to Newcastle year before last for one lecture — I suppose
coming to U.S. would be like doing that for a year? ? ? — / — /
175: To Marianne Moore
[postcard]
St. Raphael, 24 March
Good review. But are you sure the B. Jonson 1 doesn't bear a bit of con-
fession that B.J.'s a dull subject and that it was very difficult to condone
the fact through the whole of a Times article?
Probably the greatest tour de force of the book. Yes.
1 T. S. Eliot's essay on Ben Jonson is referred to.
229
Paris
176: To Agnes Bedford
[postcard]
Paris, April
Find Cocteau and Picabia intelligent. Fools abound but are less in one's
way here, or at least for the moment. Don't know that I have as yet done
more than refrain from superfluous action and possibly talk too much. • . •
Joyce's new chapter is enormous — megaloscrumptious — mastodonic.
177: To Wyndham Lewis
Paris, 27 April
Dear W.L.: Can't see that Tyro is of interest outside Bloomsbury; and
having long sought a place where
Sound of and -well is forgot
And. . . r's visage overcast with snot
Absent from the purlieus, and in fact
A freedom from the whole arseblarsted lot.
am not inclined to reenter.
Am taking up the Little Review again, as a quarterly, each number to
have about twenty reprods of one artist, replacing Soir&s de Paris.
Start off with twenty Brancusi's to get a new note.
You have had since 1917 to turn in some illustrations for L.R., but per-
haps the prospect of a full Lewis number will lure you.
Also, as I have never been able to get a publisher for a book on you, I
have the idea of trying one on 'Four Modern Artists' if you can collect
sufficient illustrations. I know there is difficulty re S. Kens, stuff and re
Quinn's stuff.
I however give you this chance for a communique to Quinn. Tell him I
am contemplating the book. (He has just bought some Brancusi, by the
way, and shown good sense in so doing.)
I should take you, Brancusi, Picasso, and, surprising as it will seem to
you, Picabia, not exacdy as a painter, but as a writer. He commences in
Pensies sans paroles and lands in his last book/. C. Rastaquoere and there
is also more in his design stuff than comes up in reprod.
*3°
1 92 1— aetat 35
Also the four chapters wd. give me a chance to make certain contrasts,
etc.
Format of L.R. will be larger and reprods therein as good as possible. It
will also be on sale at strategic points here.
Yr. correspondent Marcoissis is an industrious and serious person who
has ' done som beeutiful graiynin' in 'is time/ not a titanic intellect, but has
German market. Very very much concerned with execution. Gleizes isn't.
Bracque I have only seen for two minutes and am inclined to like.
You ought to get Eliot out of England somehow.
178: To Agnes Bedford
Paris, {? April)
Sat through the PelUas the other evening and am encouraged — encour-
aged to tear up the whole bloomin' era of harmony and do the thing if
necessary on two tins and wash-board. Anything rather than that mush of
hysteria, Scandinavia strained through Belgium plus French Schwarmerei.
Probably just as well I have to make this first swash without any instru-
ments at hand. Very much encouraged by the PelUas, ignorance having
no further terrors if that damn thing is the result of what is called musical
knowledge.
Have you seen Cocteau's Cock and Harlequin} Pub. by Egoist 3/6. Con-
siderable sense.
I haven't been able to exclude violins altogether; and I suppose there
will eventually be a few chords in the damn thing. Fortunately Satie's
Socrate is damn dull (and people endure it) and Auric, whatever he knows,
is certainly out for even less system than I am. (I really having a damn
definite system, which may bring up bang against Les Six.) They will hang
me possibly as an academic but scarcely as a dynamitist.
179: To Marianne Moore
Paris, (? April)
Dear Marianne Moore: As a protest against the imbecile suppression of
Joyce's Ulysses some of the best men here in Paris are joining me in filling
a special number of The Little Review and propose to boost it in its new
quarterly form.
231
Paris
I know perfectly well that I shall never get any adequate report of N.Y.
from N.Y. editors of the L.R. I hope that you will join in the move; at any
rate that you will write to me and let me know how things are in N.Y.
Could you, for example, see that the quarterly has a proper list of new
books of literary interest? I mean at least those which have some sort of
significance in the development of poetic expression, or formal discovery.
Books, in short, that you or I would read, or buy to keep, stuff of the sort
that I have mentioned in Instigations.
Heaven knows I have done my share of this sort of thing, and if you
haven't enough interest in the matter to do it yourself, you might at least
find some one who can take the matter as serious.
It doesn't necessarily mean more than four lines to say a book has
appeared. But a quarterly ought to have at least that.
One can trust M.C.A. to die on the bayonets, but not bring up the
water and hard tack.
We start off with twenty illustrations of Brancusi, a complete trans, of
Cocteau's Cap de Bonne Esperance, and I hope stuff by Morand, Cros,
Cendrars, Picabia — two of whom are out of Paris, and as I only got onto
this job three days ago I haven't yet heard from them.
At any rate there is to be once more a review which doesn't consult the
state of public stupidity or the dictates of prudence.
I thought I had at last got free of all Anglo-Saxon connections, am per-
haps wrong to take this new plunge. However, you might let me know
whether you can be counted on, or whether you also think I should allow
the country to sink into its apparently ineluctable and fanatical gloom
without the annoyance of transatlantic prods.
Most of your young fellow citizens appear to be heading for this side,
judging from the literary appeals falling daily upon my desk.
The inducement to American contributors is that having the best of the
French writers in the L.R. the thing will be seen here, as other Am. mags
are not.
I have tried for a year to get Thayer to print — i.e., at least get — an
article on younger American writers. No use. You might tell me if any-
thing of interest has been written there.
(Have seen Bill's Kora.) Also Contact where he attacks me for having
given, so far as I have been able, the autocthonous bard something like the
same chance as those in London. This he interprets as an attack on the
American pathriot (i.e., possibly his own dago-immigrant self)- Pas de
bile. I hope he will contribute to the new L.R. out of respect to his
Hispano-French mother. (You might also tell him — or rather forward him
this letter and save me the half hour of writing him — that Cocteau looks
23a
1 92 1— aetat 36
more like him than even his own brother Ed. Indeed much more; not full
face but 3/4; most amazin' resemblance — at least to Bill as he used to look
in 1 9 10.)
Also, entre nooz: is there anyone in America except you, Bill and Mina
Loy who can write anything of interest in verse? And as for prose???
A quarterly must to some degree make as hard a selection as is com-
patible with admitting real experiment.
180: To Agnes Bedford
Paris, May
Continuing in desperation and despite the outrageous postal rates —
What in your exltd. opinion is the least amount of tarabiscotage the
thing will stand? Ans. to be as technical as possible. After the Pilleas, as
aforestated, I feel ready to make a Partition pour deux Casseroles et une
planche de buis. Remembering that the accords, or rather identical note is
built up of several instruments forcement giving very different overtones,
how much bloody chord-harmony is necessary?
I said the other day — M. est-ce-qu'il y a de chose plus stupide qu'une
accorde?? £a me donne Teffet d'un coussin de sofa. And got the answer
4 Oui, on a toujours la sensation de s'asseoir dessus.'
Premier principe — rien that interferes with the words, or with the
utmost possible clarity of impact of words on audience. . . .
Even an instrumental counterpoint developed ANYwhere near enough to
satisfy mere contrapuntalist would presumably bitch the words?????
Given the play for the eye, and the song, how much of actual orchestra-
tion does the audience hear???
181: To T. S.Eliot
Paris j 24 Saturnusy An I, (24 December)
Caro mio: Much improved. I think your instinct had led you to put the
remaining superfluities at the end. I think you had better leave 'em,
abolish 'em altogether or for the present.
*33
Paris
If you must keep 'em, put 'em at the beginning before the 'April
crudest month/ The poem ends with the 'Shantih, shantih, shantih.'
One test is whether anything would be lacking if the last three were
omitted. I don't think it would.
The song has only two lines which you can use in the body of the poem.
The other two, at least the first, does not advance on earlier stuff. And
even the sovegna doesn't hold with the rest; which does hold.
(It also, to your horror probably, reads aloud very well. Mouthing out
hisOOOOOOze.)
I doubt if Conrad is weighty enough to stand the citation.
^The thing now runs from 'April . . .' to 'shantih' without a break. That
is 19 pages, and let us say the longest poem in the English langwidge.
Don't try to bust all records by prolonging it three pages further.
The bad nerves is O.K. as now led up to.
My squibs are now a bloody impertinence. I send 'em as requested; but
don't use 'em with Waste Land.
You can tack 'em onto a collected edtn, or use 'em somewhere where
they would be decently hidden and swamped by the bulk of accompanying
matter. They'd merely be an extra and wrong note with the 19 page
version.
Complimenti, you bitch/ I am wracked by the seven jealousies, and
cogitating an excuse for always exuding my deformative secretions in my
own stuff, and never getting an outline^! go into nacre and objets d'art.
Some day I shall lose my temper, blaspheme Flaubert, lie like a
and say 'Art should embellish the umbelicus.*
Sage Homme
These are the poems of Eliot
By the Uranian Muse begot;
A Man their Mother was,
A Muse their Sire.
How Jul the printed Infancies result
From Nuptials thus doubly difficult?
If you must needs enquire
Know diligent Reader
That on each Occasion
E\ra performed the caesarean Operation.
*34
1 92 1— aetat 36
Cauls and grave clothes he brings
Fortune's outrageous stings.
About which odour clings,
Of putrefaction,
Bleichstein's dank rotting clothes
Affect the dainty nose.
He speaks of common woes
Deploring action*
He writes ofA.B.Cs
And flaxseed poultices.
Observing fate's hard decrees
Sans satisfaction;
Breeding of animals,
Humans and cannibals,
But above all else of smells
Without attraction
Vates cum fistula
It is after all a grrrreat littttttterary period.
Thanks for the Aggymemnon.
*3S
1922
1 82: From T.S. Eliot to Ezra Pound
[The following letter, which continues the discussion of The Waste Land,
was sent by Eliot to Pound. Pound's marginal notes are indicated in boldface.
London , (? January)
Cher maitre: Qriticisms accepted so far as understood, with thanks.
Glowed on the marble where the glass
Sustained by standards wrought with fruited vines
Wherefrom...}} O.K.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair ... O.K.
A closed car. I can't use taxi more than once. O.K.
Departed, have left no addresses ...??? O.K.
What does thence mean (To luncheon at the Cannon St. Hotel) ? ? ?
Would D's difficulty be solved by inverting to
Drifting logs
The barges wash . . . ???
1. Do you advise printing ' Gerontion' as a prelude in book or pamphlet
form?
2. Perhaps better omit Phlebas also ? ? ?
3. Wish to use Caesarean Operation in italics in front.
4. Certainly omit miscellaneous pieces. Those at end,
5. Do you mean not use the Conrad quote or simply not put Conrad's
name to it? It is much the most appropriate I can find, and some-
what elucidative.
Complimenti appreciated, as have been excessively depressed.
I would have sent Aeschule before but have been in bed with flu, now
out, but miserable.
Would you advise working sweats with tears etc. into nerves mono-
logue; only place where it can go ?
Have writ to Thayer asking what he can offer for this*
Trying to read Aristophane.]
236
1922— aetat 36
183: To T. S. Eliot
Paris, (? January)
Filio dilecto mihi: I merely queeried the dialect of 'thence'; dare say it is
O.K.
D. was fussing about some natural phenomenon, but I thought I had
crossed out her query. The wake of the barges washes etc., and the barges
may perfectly well be said to wash. I should leave it as it is, and not invert.
I do not advise printing ' Gerontion' as preface. One don't miss it at all
as the thing now stands. To be more lucid still, let me say that I advise you
not to print ' Gerontion* as prelude.
I do advise keeping Phlebas. In fact I more'n advise. Phlebas is an inte-
gral part of the poem; the^ard pack introduces him, the~3rowned pho„en.
sailor. And he is needed ABsolootly where he is. Must stay in.
Do as you like about my obstetric effort.
Ditto re Conrad; who am I to grudge him his laurel crown?
jEschylus not so good as I had hoped, but haven't had time to improve
him, yet.
I dare say the sweats with tears will wait.
You can forward the 'Bolo' to Joyce if you think it won't unhinge his
somewhat Sabbatarian mind. On the hole he might be saved the shock,
shaved the sock.
You will remember (or if not remind me of) the occasion when the
whole company arose as one man and burst out singing ' Gawd save the
Queen.' The anti-lynch law (postlude of mediaeval right to scortum ante
mortem) has I see been passed to the great glee of the negro spectators in
the congressional art gallery.
Dere z also de stoory of the poker game, if you hab forgotten it.
184: To Amy Lowell
Paris, 10 March
Once more to the breach, My Dear Amy: The Syballine or however you
spell 'em books are burning; once more, pas de bile, before it is yet too
late, do you wish to repent and be saved ?
Pas de bile, I have none. You have attributed to me malicious remarks
*37
Paris
that I have never made. I have heard that you pay for your advertising, but
I have never said so to anyone.
But you haven't, and there it is, you simply haven't taken the turning
that leads to your getting the most fun out of life, and in your better
moments, you know it. It means a lot of wear and tear, and it ain't, no
dearie, it ain't good for the nerves. The eye of the needle is narrow.
Further information if you want it.
185: To William Carlos Williams
Paris , iS March
Deer Bullll: The point is that Eliot is at the last gasp. Has had one break-
down. We have got to do something at once.
I have been on the job, am dead tired with hammering this machine.
Steps have been taken. Richard and I, pledged £10 per year. This merely
to apologize for brevity. I enclose carbon outline. 1 Get to it.
Can you run to 50 dollars yourself? ? ?
1 There is no organized or coordinated civilization left, only individual
scattered survivors.
Aristocracy is gone, its function was to select.
Only those of us who know what civilization is, only those of us who want
better literature, not more literature, better art, not more art, can be expected to
pay for it. No use waiting for masses to develop a finer taste, they aren't moving
that way.
All the rewards to men who do compromise works.
No hope for others.
Millionaires all tapped too frequently. Must be those of us who care. We are
none of us able to act alone. Must cooperate.
Increase production of the best, by releasing the only energies that are capable
of producing it.
'Bel Esprit' started in Paris. To release as many captives as possible.
Darkness and confusion as in Middle Ages; no chance of general order or
justice; we can only release an individual here or there.
T. S. Eliot first name chosen. Must have thirty guarantors at £10 per year 'for
life or for as long as Eliot needs it' (anyone who don't like my choice is at liberty
to choose some other imprisoned artist or writer, and start another 'Bel Esprit'
group).
Only thing we can give the artist is leisure to work in. Only way we can get
work from him is to assure him this leisure.
As fast as his sales go up, amount of his subsidy will be decreased; this to
insure quality: to prevent his being penalized for suppressing inferior work.
Every writer is penalized as at present for not doing bad work, penalized for not
printing everything he can sell.
238
1922— aetat 36
I wd. try and make it good to you later. I mean the struggle is to get the
first man released. 'Release of energy for invention and design' ace best
economic theories. After Eliot is freed it will be much easier to get out the
second, third and tenth prisoners.
I wd. back you for the second, if you wished. But I don't really believe
you want to leave the U.S. permanently. I think you are suffering from
nerve; that you are really afraid to leave Rutherford. I think you ought to
have a year off or a six months' vacation in Europe. I think you are afraid
to take it, for fear of destroying some illusions which you think necessary
to your illusions. I don't think you ought to leave permanently, your job
gives you too real a contact, too valuable to give up. But you ought to see
a human being now and again.
One might, after freeing Eliot, run a yearly trip from America. Or at
least you one summer, Marianne another, etc. when there was someone
worth it. At present, although the necessary 30 for Eliot haven't been
found, I can I think offer you a summer home. The 'Bel Esprit' is defin-
itely started. And the 'pavilion' was offered me yesterday for suitable can-
didate. It is not the ' sanctuaire ' on card enclosed. <
Wastage of literary prizes. Anatole France deserved the Nobel Prize, but no
one will claim that giving it to him at age of 74 increases or betters his pro-
duction.
Eliot, in bank, makes £500. Too tired to write, broke down; during con-
valescence in Switzerland did Waste Land, a masterpiece; one of most important
1 9 pages in English.
Returned to bank, and is again gone to pieces, physically.
Pound, Aldington, start with £10 guarantees, if they can afford it others can.
Must restart civilization; people who say they care, don't care unless they
care to the extent of £5 in the spring and £5 in autumn, ridiculous to say they
do, if they won't run to that, can't expect a civilization or grumble if they don't
[lacuna].
Not charity, not 'pity the poor artist'. Eliot wd. rather work in bank than do
poor work. Has tried to live by pen and can't. (Poor health, invalid wife.)
Not charity in his case nor in case of any other good artist which we may
later choose.
It is for us who want good work to provide means of its being done. We are
the consumers and we demand something fit to consume.
In the arts quantity is nothing, quality everything.
Only certain men who can produce the grade of stuff we want. They must be
in position to do so.
Only certain lands will produce copper, etc. Must go where the stuff is, no
gathering figs of thistle bushes.
If not enough good will to release one proved writer, how do they expect to
regenerate Europe?
Eliot first item on list. Anyone free to start group for their own choice.
*39
Paris
It is a show down. Those who don't care 50 dollars a year for the arts,
don't care for much. It gags the sassiety muckers.
I want you to help. If you can't make the 50 dollars a year pledge, can
you organize a group which will do so? I am writing to Bob McA. (lmon >;
I want you to work in America. It is the start that is the hardest. Once the
nucleus formed. Once the Tom cat and the she-cat, the kittens will arrive
without our worrying.
No use trying to unite people on critical basis, basis of common taste, or
opinion, must unite on basis of common good will. Anyone don't like
choice of Paris branch of 'Bel Esprit' can start local branch, backing local
fancy. If you don't approve sending American poet to Europe, you can
invite European poet to U.S.A. I don't care.
First step is however necessary. Must free the qualified energies if we
are to get the stuff.
186: To H. L. Mencken
Paris, 22 March
My dear Henry: Who is to pay my way to the 'remains'? The Christian
Era ended at midnight on Oct. 29-30 of last year. You are now in the year
1. p.s.U., if that is any comfort to you.
I thought you were coming over for a drink on the 'first post bellum
boat.' Air' yeh waterlogged?
Will you come in on this ' Bel Esprit' show? It will cost you fifty bones
a year, but if I can afford it, you can. Nothing will get any better until
some one does something decent.
Shaw now writes to me twice a week complaining of the high price of
Ulysses.
Umbra, Instigations, why not the last vol. of my distinguished mews.
Bad Stomackhk, I don't wonder. As the apostle says, take a little
Pomeroy for thy belly's ache. — / — /
You better come away, Henry, before it is yet even too late.
240
1922— aetat 36
187: To Katb Buss
Paris, (^23 ) March
Dear K.B.: No, this circular is, as marked, for private circulation. 1 There
1 The following circular was printed by John Rodker for ' Bel Esprit ' :
'In order that T. S. Eliot may leave his work in Lloyd's Bank and devote his
whole time to literature, we are raising a fund, to be £300 annually; this being in
our opinion the minimum possible for this purpose. Method, £10, Fifty dollars
. . . payable yearly by 30 subscribers.
'NOTE
'As three of the initial life members of Bel Esprit, Richard Aldington, May
Sinclair and Ezra Pound are practising authors, having nothing but their
writings to live on, we consider ourselves in a position to know, with some
accuracy, conditions being what they are, about what Eliot can earn by his best
work; and at what point hack-work, etc. would interfere with his good writing,
i.e., interfere with it as much as or more than his present exhausting, but steady
bank work (which brings him £600 a year).
'(This notice for private circulation only.)
'We are not a home for sick animals. We want the work of certain men. We
want a better grade of work than present systems of publishing are willing to pay
for. This is to our credit, and our choice of an artist should be an honour to him.
'Eliot's earlier poems are available. He tried some years ago to live by
journalism, and found the bank preferable. Our aim is not to send him back
into journalism.
'He certainly is not asking favours, our plan was concocted without his
knowledge. The facts are that his bank work has diminished his output of
poetry, and that his prose has grown tired. Last winter he broke down and was
sent off for three months' rest. During that time he wrote Waste Land, a series
of poems, possibly the finest that the modern movement in English has pro-
duced, at any rate as good as anything that has been done since 1900, and which
certainly loses nothing by comparison with the best work of Keats, Browning or
Shelley. As some of the subscribers approve primarily of Eliot, and some
primarily of the aims of the society, Bel Esprit, the pledge forms are written so
that the subscriber may make his donation either to Eliot direct, or to Bel Esprit
for Eliot, in which latter case the treasurers of Bel Esprit (Mr. Aldington,
England, Mr. Pound, France) stand personally responsible for the delivery of
receipts to Mr. Eliot.
'I hereby pledge myself to contribute £ yearly
$ yearly
for years
to (a) T.S.Eliot
(£) To Bel Esprit for T. S. Eliot (in which case a treasurer of Bel Esprit,
R. Aldington, Malthouse Cottage, Padworth, Reading, Berks, acting in England.
Q *4i
Paris
can be no more publicity about Eliot until his subsidy is fixed, as further
talk might get him into a mess with the bank, before he is ready to quit.
This is important.
You can write about 'Bel Esprit* (if you understand it). The present
circular leaves only paragraph i on page 2 quotable.
I am going to write out a clear statement of 'Bel Esprit' as soon as
possible.
Main ideas:
i. That the reader is a consumer and that quality is a luxury; i.e. it can
appeal only to a few people and they, if they want it, must pay for it.
2. As there is no aristocracy, one must form a combine of simple par-
ticulars to pay.
It is a risk. So is an oil well.
I will write in a few days.
188: To Wyndham Lewis
Siena, 5 April
Caro mio: There is no use my giving you advice re yr. own affairs. I have
never known you to take any anyhow.
Don't see that 'Bel Esprit' could ever do much more than provide you
a studio.
Certainly can't start on you as you have to the public eye had nothing
but leisure for years. Nothing to prevent or to have prevented you doing
any damn thing you liked, save yr habit of fuss and of having a private life
and allowing it to intrude on yr. attention. Try New York; I mean emi-
grate. England is under a curse.
Or — Ezra Pound, 70HS rue Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, acting in France,
stands personally responsible for the transmission of funds to Mr. Eliot).
'This money is given on the understanding that Mr. Eliot shall devote his
entire time to literary work. No restriction is placed on the nature of that work,
and I, the present donor, will make no effort to influence either the subject-
matter or the manner of his writing save by such literary criticism as any critic
of literature might indulge in.
IwiUpaythismoney^^^} **•** ^
(Signature) '
241
1922— aetat 36
Also re -Bel Esprit': Joyce worked for years as language teacher, and I
have done all sorts of little jobs at £1/1 a shot.
I had left Paris before your writing re Schiff. I left on March 27th. Don't
think wd. have done any good my meeting him as it wd. be esagg. to say I
find him a kindred spirit.
Re ' Bel Esprit': vide New Age for Mar. 30th.
Anyone who can afford to can buy annuities or place capital in Lloyds'
(most of the subscribers can't).
T. bound to be sceptical until the actual sum is in hand. At present there
is £120 a year. He wd. in time earn something by his pen. Annuities at
£180 on T's life are obviously the preferable form.
Good will counts for something, also the possible spread of the society
and there being a larger fund than T's ^3 00 to fall back on.
The £120 is already flanked by several people willing to give £20, but
who ought not to be allowed to do so. That margin acts as insurance.
If there aren't 30 or 50 people interested in literature, there is no civiliza-
tion and we may as well regard our work as a private luxury, having no
aims but our own pleasure. You can't expect people to pay you for enjoy-
ing yourself.
189: To William Carlos Williams
Venice^ 4 May
See here ole son: If you hear a report of my death don't fer Xt's sake deny
it. Say you expected as much. Suggest Xifiction or assifiction or any other
— and xpress perlite regret.
Now as to the Pavilion: I wrote you from Paris that I hoped to be able
to offer it to you. The matter re pavilion was broached at a tea fight 3 days
before I left Paris and I was expected to come out and inspect it — hygien-
ically etc. and pronounce it fit or unfit for literary habitation. On receipt of
yrs. (containing Katz proceeds) I wrote to Paris to see if formality of my
inspection, etc., were necessary. The Baronne de Clausel responds that it is
fit for a European artist but that she shudders to think of effect it might
have on an American. An American to her is evidently someone who wd.
shrink from sharing his priwy with a chauffeur.
My studio won't hold three, but my spouse goes to Eng. about July
15 th. I can therefore offer you a room for 6 weeks or 2 months during
which you wd. have time to inspect the Pavilion and see if it is habitable —
or worth bothering about for the rest of yr. vacation.
*43-
Paris
You wd., during the 6-8 weeks, have the inconvenience of my presence
below you, balanced by the convenience of getting yr. breakfasts ready
made and not having to struggle with charwomen. I need scarcely say that
the incommodity of yr. presence wd. be but a greater delight to me — am
not expecting to give birth to an infant. At least I have shown no sympt-
toms of pregnancy and there is only 2 to four months in which you wd. be
exposed to the dangers of a hurry call.
You can have a separate key to the back entrance, and put a couch in the
work room if you want to receive female patients without my knowledge.
Thanks fer 5 bones reed.
I hope you'll come over.
Seriously, please don't contradict report of my demise if it has the luck
to spread. I want a little quiet.
And let me know probable date of yr. arrival and length of yr. time off.
?You don't want to take a boat to Genoa and come to Lago di Garda for a
week first? Probably not worth bore of extra visas, of train trip up to
Paris. I shan't be back in Paris before about 7th July. (Not trying to nurse
you or personally conduct you thru Europe — only you can't get into the
studio in my absence as the key is here in my pocket and the lease forbids
loan or sublet. Hence the meticulous necessity of my being there to open
the door if you deign to enter.)
There's also the very faint possibility that I might have to form a junc-
tion with X. here in Italy which might (tho' unlikely) delay my return a
week or so. Will let you know as soon as pos. but in any case, in anny kase,
so far foresight permits nothing visible at the moment, menaces your
having 6 weeks or two months free shelter at 7obis. and more in Baronne's
back garden if her shack is good enough.
As you have been so explicit in yr. optation of undisturbed solitude I
hesitate to offer to prolong my sojourn in Italy — if you shd. care to shed
the lustre of yr. medical knowledge on this land already flavoured with
sunlight — possibly cd. offer you at least four nerve cases, if that's any
inducement.
As to Paris. If you take the room off my studio, don't fer Christ's sake
think you need see me except at breakfast or that your quiet need be
infected. I've got (or suppose I have) loan to use a room and garden else-
where so that we shdn't be cramped.
*44
1912— aetat 36
190: To Felix E. Schelling
Paris j Sjuly
Dear Dr. Schelling: The length of the enclosed is an outrage. But having
written it, I may as well send it. I intended only three or four pages.
Dear Dr. Schelling: May I thank you for the grave tone of your review
which has just reached me; and also since there is so little tempered criti-
cism; and since there can be no sort of literary life in America unless at
least two or three people talk about the same subject once and a while, may
I take up one or two points ?
(I mean in the Dial, for example, with Brooke, etc. etc. all talking at
tangents, and never once discussing any point, never answering anything,
never trying to give a more precise contour to any idea advanced by any
other writer in the magazine, one gets no centre, no vie litteraire properly
so-called or callable.)
Criticism, I take it, is written in the hope of better things. With all my
legendary cantankerousness, I think I have tried to learn from critics. . . .
Sum total of debts to date:
One caution against homophones, reed, from Robt. Bridges.
Considerable encouragement to tell people to go to hell, and to main-
tain absolute intransigeance, reed, from Mr. W. B. Yeats.
Any amount of good criticism, chiefly in form of attacks on dead lan-
guage, dialects of books, dialects of Lionel Johnson, etc., reed, from F.
Madox Hueffer.
One impractical and infinitely valuable suggestion reed, from Thomas
Hardy.
(This latter a suggestion re change of title of Homage to Propertius.
Don't know that T.H. realized how much he was revealing of the gap
between himself and the '90s. But he woke one to the extent of his own
absorption in subject as contrasted with aesthetes' preoccupation with
'treatment.')
In your review there are the following:
1. No, I have not done a translation of Propertius. That fool in Chicago
took the Homage for a translation, despite the mention of Wordsworth
and the parodied line from Yeats. (As if, had one wanted to pretend to
more Latin than one knew, it wdn't have been perfectly easy to correct
one's divergencies from a Bohn crib. Price 5 shillings.)
I do think, however, that the homage has scholastic value. MacKail
(accepted as 'right* opinion on the Latin poets) hasn't, apparently, any
*45
Paris
inkling of the way in which Propertius is using Latin. Doesn't see that S.P.
is tying blue ribbon in the tails of Virgil and Horace, or that sometime
after his first 'book' S.P. ceased to be the dupe of magniloquence and
began to touch words somewhat as Laforgue did.
2. About Provence. The Wm. Morris tapestry treatment of the Middle
Ages is unsatisfactory. The originals are more vital, more realist. De Born
writes songs to provoke real war, and they were effective. This is
very different from Romantic or Macaulay-Tennyson praise of past
battles.
(Interruptions. Got back from Italy last Sunday and am having a show
of Round's paintings in this studio on Tuesday . . . large canvases, some
of them . . . etc. However will try to keep to thread of my discourse.)
9J ul y
My assaults on Provence: ist: using it as subject matter, trying to do as
R.B. had with Renaissance Italy. 2, Diagrammatic translations (those of
Arnaut, now printed in Instigations); all part of study of verse-form (as
trans, of Cavalcanti). Note that the English 'poet' en masse had simply
said: 'these forms are impossible in English, they are too complicated, we
haven't the rhymes.' That was bunkum, usual laziness of English, and
hatred of craft. (I suppose I have by now a right to be serious about this
matter, having been plugging at it for twenty years.) Eh bien. 1. 1 have
proved that the Provengal rhyme schemes are not impossible in English.
They are probably inadvisable. The troubadour was not worried by our
sense of style, our 'literary values,' he could shovel in words in any order
he liked. Milton ruined his work by not understanding that the genius of
English is not the genius of Latin, and that one can not write an unin-
fected language in the same way, using the same word-order that serves in
an inflected language. The troubadour, fortunately perhaps, was not
worried about English order; he got certain musical effects because he cd.
concentrate on music without bothering about literary values. He had a
kind of freedom which we no longer have.
There is, however, a beauty in the troubadour work which I have tried
to convey. I have failed almost without exception; I can't count six people
whom I have succeeded in interesting in Xllth Century Provence. Perhaps
the best thing I have done is with the music. Note Five Troubadour Songs,
Provenjal, with Chaucer's words set to the music. (Pub. London two
years ago.)
In the Quia Pauper Amavi vol. and Liveright's Poems 1921: The point
of the archaic language in the Prov. trans, is that the Latin is really
246
1922— aetat 36
'modern.' We are just getting back to a Roman state of civilization, or in
reach of it; whereas the Provengal feeling is archaic, we are ages away from
it. (Whether I have managed to convey this or not I can't say; but it is the
reason for the archaic dialect.) (Anecdote: Years ago when I was just try-
ing to find and use modern speech, old Bridges carefully went through
Personae and Exultations and commended every archaism (to my horror),
exclaiming ' We'll get 'em all back; we'll get 'em all back.' Eheu fugaces !)
Next: There's plenty of 'premeditated thrust' in Provengal satire. I
don't think one ought to hurt unless one means to.
As to the free verse translation and adaptations of ' Langue d'Oc' in the
last volume. The charm and lyricism may be gone, but I think you were
wrong about the 'music and ease' (try 'em aloud). The 'clamour' and
'charmer' are not intended to be an impression of rhyme, but of syzogy
such as one finds in Arnaut's stanzas without internal rhyme: 'comba,'
'trembla,' 'pona' followed in that strophe by rhyme in 'oigna.' Or the
*-iers f *-ors 9 sequence.
However, you are right in not finding the 'Langue d'Oc' satisfactory.
(Save perhaps the ' Descant' ? On Cerclamon.)
Years ago Yeats was struggling with my rhythms and saying they
wouldn't do. I got him to read a little Burns aloud, telling him he cd. read
no cadence but his own, or some verse like Sturge Moore's that had not
any real characteristics strong enough to prohibit W.B.Y. reading it to his
own rhythm. I had a half hour of unmitigated glee in hearing 'Say ye
bonnie Alexander' and 'The Birks o Averfeldy' keened, wailed with infin-
ite difficulty and many pauses and restarts to The Wind Among the Reeds.
Sennin are the Chinese spirits of nature or of the air. I don't see that they
are any worse than Celtic Sidhe.
Rokku is a mountain. I can perhaps emend the line and make that
clearer, though 'on' limits it to either a mountain or an island (an an-
biguity which don't much matter at that point). The name and title indi-
cate a French priest (as a matter of fact he is a Jesuit).
Perhaps as the poem goes on I shall be able to make various things
clearer. Having the crust to attempt a poem in ioo or 120 cantos long after
all mankind has been commanded never again to attempt a poem of any
length, I have to stagger as I can.
The first 1 1 cantos are preparation of the palette. I have to get down all
the colours or elements I want for the poem. Some perhaps too enig-
matically and abbreviatedly. I hope, heaven help me, to bring them into
some sort of design and architecture later.
Next point: This being buoyed by wit. No. Punch and the rest of them
have too long gone on treating the foetor of England as if it were some-
M7
Paris
thing to be joked about. There is an evil without dignity and without
tragedy, and it is dishonest art to treat it as if it were funny. It is perhaps
difficult to treat it at all; the Brit. Empire is rotting because no one in
England tries to treat it. Juvenal isn't witty. Joyce's isn't harsh enough.
One hasn't any theology to fall back on.
I am perhaps didactic; so in a sense, or in different senses are Homer,
Dante, Villon, and Omar, and Fitzgerald's trans, of Omar is the only good
poem of Vict, era that has got beyond a fame de c^nacle. It's all rubbish to
pretend diat art isn't didactic. A revelation is always didactic. Only the
aesthetes since 1880 have pretended the contrary, and they aren't a very
sturdy lot.
Art can't offer a patent medicine. A failure to dissociate that from a pro-
founder didacticism has led to the errors of 'aesthete's' critique
(Of course, I'm no more Mauberley than Eliot is Prufrock. Mais pas-
sons.) Mauberley is a mere surface. Again a study in form, an attempt to
condense the James novel. Meliora speramus.
Eliot's Waste Land is I think the justification of the 'movement,' of our
modern experiment, since 1900. It shd. be published this year.
P.S. If 1 ever plagued you about Shaw in the old days, I apologize. He is
fundamentally trivial.
Minor quibbles: 'confirmed devotee of vers libre'; search for quantita-
tive element in English, for liberty of the musician.
Provengal 'poetry romantic' That doesn't so much interest me. The
fact that Arnaut and Guido were psychological, almost physiological,
diagnosticians does interest me. It also interested the late T. E. Hulme (mei
gratia).
Cerclamon was insouciant in cadence; Guillaume de Poictiers satyric
(the ' leer' can be his, quite correctly).
In the cantos, as yet ?? I have managed to make certain passages intel-
ligible in themselves, even though the whole is still unintelligible???? Or
perhaps I haven't.
Also if I am unlike other people, how is it a pose? Isn't it merely com-
mon honesty? There are twelve or more vols, to prove some slight bio-
logical variant between me and the other ex-Penn '05 or ex-seminarists.
Isn't it nearly time that one allowed me the honesty of never having pre-
tended the contrary?
And ' original ' ? ? ? when I can so snugly fit into the words of Propertius
almost thirty pages with nothing that isn't S.P., or with no distortion of
his phrases that isn't justifiable by some other phrase of his elsewhere?
'Affectation of fine phrase': I don't know. I thought it was onomato-
poeia. For fifteen years 'di lontano connobi il temmolar della marina' and
248
1922— aetat 36
for eight or perhaps six years 'para thina poluphloisboio thalasses.' And
perhaps even now one has to over-stress the au in addition before one gets
the effect I was after.
The metre in Mauberley is Gautier and Bion's 'Adonis'; or at least
those are the two grafts I was trying to flavour it with. Syncopation from
the Greek; and a general distaste for the slushiness and swishiness of the
post-Swinburnian British line. (Cf. Dante's remarks in the D.V.E.)
Shock troops. All right. There are things I quite definitely want to
destroy, and which I think will have to (be) annihilated before civilization
can exist, i.e. anything I shd. dignify with the title civilization, last vestiges
of which probably went by the board in the counterreformation. I mean all
that is left is exiled, driven in catacombs, exists in the isolated individual,
who occasionally meets one other with a scrap of it concealed in his person
or his study.
My main objection is to your phrase about being buoyed by wit. If the
poets don't make certain horrors appear horrible who will? All values ulti-
mately come from our judicial sentences. (This arrogance is not mine but
Shelley's, and it is absolutely true. Humanity is malleable mud, and the arts
set the moulds it is later cast into. Until the cells of humanity recognize cer-
tain things as excrement, they will stay in (the) human colon and poison
it. Victoria was an excrement, Curtis, Lorrimer, all British journalism are
excrement. Bottomley has been jailed and Northcliffe gone off his head to
prove this.)
It isn't enough to give the Rabelaisian guffaw. Aristotle has used the
word, cascarets. Honestly I think Lustra has done a work of purgation of
minds, meritorious as the physical products of Beecham. Being intem-
perate, at moments, I shd. prefer dynamite, but in measured moments I
know that all violence is useless (even the violence of language. . . . How-
ever, one must know an infinite amount before one can decide on the
position of the border line between strdng language and violent language).
The governed explosion of dynamite in a quarry, useful, O.K.; and the
calamitous useless explosion.
La la. I run on too long.
191: To Harriet Monroe
Paris, 16 July
Dear H.M.: Yours of April 13 to hand. Got back from Italy a fortnight
a g°-
249
Paris
Yes, there is, as per enclosed ' Bel Esprit* private notices, a very definite
scheme not only for Eliot, but for literchure and the ahts in general.
Eliot is the first stone. 22 of the 30 subscriptions are in; and with two
lump gifts, the £3°° f° r the first year is either in hand or promised. Some
of the pledges are not very well secured. I still want another ten. They are
mostly 'life' pledges, but there are three that are for only three or five
years.
I shall hang out myself until the U.S. is ready to start a ministry of
Beaux Arts, and put me in charge. They won't do that until nearly the end
of the hecker era, and the crepuscule of the boobs. Also they will have to
digest one or two facts, stated in the elementary geography books, but
never digested by the pupils.
As Bill Williams needs time rather than cash, I think the next *B. Espr.'
move may be a yearly travel fellowship. Possibly 1000 bones wd. cover it.
My first nomination wd. be, I think, Marianne Moore . . . though I am
open to suggestion.
Re the Anthology: I have had to stop all permissions to anthologists. I
can only promise you that if you print the poem, no steps will be taken,
and no protest uttered. Perhaps you had better use it, to give a fuller
synopsis.
As to anthologies in general (except those that are a sort of group mani-
festo) the collectors seem generally to want to prove that one agrees with
their particular form of idiocy. Your anth. is rather better. You do give a
sort of outline of the earlier part of my work. But you never have per-
mitted minority reports. Damn remnants in you of Jew religion, that
bitch Moses and the rest of the tribal barbarians. Even you do still try at
least to leave the reader in ignorance of the fact that I do not accept the
current dung, and official opinions about the dregs of the Xtn super-
stition, the infamy of American laws, etc. Bulbous taboos, and so forth.
You might at least print a footnote saying that I consider many Ameri-
can laws infamous, and that I do not accept many beliefs which it is not at
present permitted people to contradict in print or in school textbooks in
theU.S.
That wd. give better equilibrium to your ladylike selection of my verse.
Say that I consider the Writings of Confucius, and Ovid's Metamor-
phoses the only safe guides in religion. This doesn't repudiate 'The
G <oodly > F<ere)\ Christ can very well stand as an heroic figure. The hero
need not be of wisdom all compounded. Also he is not wholly to blame for
the religion that's been foisted on to him. As well blame me for . . . for all
the bunk in vers libre.
Christianity as practised resumes itself into one commandment dear %q
1922— aetat 36
all officials, American Y.M.C.A., burocrats, etc., 'Thou shalt attend to thy
neighbor's business before attending to thine own/
In your footnote you ought to point out that I refuse to accept any
monotheistic taboos whatsoever. That I consider the Metamorphoses a
sacred book, and the Hebrew scriptures the record of a barbarian tribe, full
of evil. You have no decent right to palm me off for what I am not, even if
it does happen to suit your convenience.
192: To Amy Lowell
Paris, 19 July
Dear Amy: Letter from Richard this a.m. repenting of his outburst in
N.Y. Post, and containing the Caesarean Jesus Wept, in the words 'Amy
refuses.'
Auw shucks ! dearie, aint you the hell-roarer, aint you the kuss.
P.S. The first year's £300 is in hand or promised, and 22 subscriptions
reed.
193: To William Carlos Williams
Paris, (1 August)
Cher Bull: There's a printer here wants me to supervise a series of book-
lets, prose (in your case perhaps verse, or whatever form your new stuff is
in). Gen. size about 50 pages (??? too short for you). Limited private edtn.
of 350 copies. 50 dollars down to author, and another 50 later.
Is this any use to you for anything? Appearance in this series wdnt.
interfere with later reprint in pub. edtn. or inclusion of the 50 pages in
some later longer book. It is a means of getting in 100 dollars extra before
one goes to publisher.
Yeats' sisters' press in Ireland has brought him a good deal in this way.
I got nearly as much from my little book with them as from the big
Macmillan edtn. ofNok.
I shall keep the series strictly modern. One can be more intimate. The
private limited edtn. don't imply that one is talking to the public, but
simply to one's friends.
Anyhow. Explode: let's hear what you have and what you think.
Paris
I think it is probably better, at point where we have now arrived, than
stray contributions to stray magazines. On peut bien fitre soi, et chez soi.
Also the printing will be good, as the chap is doing it himself. (His name is
WillyumBird.)
Also what tips can you give the press re American book shops (/"any?
And how many Contact subscribers wd. be likely to want your stuff?
It's hell the way I always seem to get sucked into editing something or
other.
I suppose the people included in the series wd. more or less pool their
lists of likely addresses.
I shall probably use the series for an annual outburst: and only send
enough stuff to magazines to pay my rent. I haven't exactly flooded the
world with muck during the last two years, anyhow.
The series is open: Though I don't at the moment see much more than
half a dozen names: Hueffer, you, Eliot, Lewis, Windeler, Hemingway, et
moi m£me. (That's seven.)
I take it Marianne never has anything but verse ? ? ?
This is a prose series. General success or point of the thing wd. lie in its
being really interesting.
As Bird says, he can make money issuing bibliographies, that is not
what he wants.
25a
1923
i94- To James Joyce
Rapallo, 1 6 January
Ballade of the most gallant Mulligan, Senator in ordinary
and the frivolous milkwench of Hogan
afftl. dedicated to
S. Daedalus
Tenor
by his friend
Simm McNulty
Ohe, ohe y Jock Hielandman,
The strong and brawny Mulligan
Took off his overcoat and ran
Unto the river Liffey,
Peeled off his breeches and jumped in.
Humecting thus his hairy skin;
All heedless of pursuers' din
He struck out like a porpoise.
* Who goes there j where the waters pour
1 Across the mill-dam, say, koindsir?*
'I am a Celtic senator*
To her replied Buck Mulligan.
* Put on your breeches, sir, again*
To him replied the milk-maiden,
* before you land by our hog-pen,
on this side of the Liffey. 9
'Achy darlint, do not but lend me yours,
* Oi left moine widthem rebel boors
'whom you seefearin* wather-cures
on tdther side the Liffey*
*53.
Paris
* 01 will, sir,' says she, as cute as cheep,
* To shieldyoufrom thegaelic breeze,
'Bedad, oi think they* 11 reach your knees,
* Kind, kindly kind, sir senator,
1 And I but one condition make
' Before I doff now for your sake
* — think — Jaysus! think what oi've at stake,
9 O kindly kind, sir senator,
* If you will wear them and go down
* To the senate hall in Dublin Town
'In that attire, — do not frown,
'Promise me, dear; or, damn you, drown*
195: To William Carlos Williams
Rapallo, 9 February
Deer Bull: The 3 Mts. printing is beautiful as the feet of young damsels on
the hills (or rather better).
Hope the Kittens are A-i.
The Dial has kindly sent me the enclosed for 'Ed,' Dew send it to him
with my compliments.
I do not advise you to pay for having vol. of poems printed. You corit
sell a vol. You can get it published on royalty basis — that's all anyone can
do except possibly Kipling.
S'Oiseau is putting so much energy and cash into making 3 Mts. print-
ing the A- 1 double X, that I don't know how the press will survive the
prose series. If it does go on and if your Gt. Am. Nov. sells 200 copies, I
think he might do the poems (yours). At least I shd. like to see the mss.
and consider it if the press continues. (This is private. Officially the press
is to last forever and rival Aldus, Froben, Gypsum etc) Bill Bird he is
sparin' no pains (save on proof correcting).
Hem and his missus and me and my missus start south on Monday.
Hear Robt. McA. is in Florence.
P.S. Re the Gt. Novel — all that need be done re that Ladies' Home
Urinal is to put woppin gt double sized quote marks before and after the
quote — say a line space and then the quotes. Sic.
*$4'
1923- aetat 37
Please write to Bird and tell him where to put 'em. I.e. where the L.H.J,
begins and ends.
196: To Kate Buss
Paris, 12 May
Dear K.B.: I don't know anything about literary agents. How should I,
being completely unsaleable? Have you tried Liveright?
The Four Seas publish Bill Williams. That's all I know about U.S. pub-
licators.
Re Three Mts. Press: Your friend can get, or shd. be able to get copies
in a hurry from the trade agents in N.Y., Gotffcchalk, as per enclosed.
HuefFer's book is just out, and the next two at the binders. For further
arrangements Vinal had better write direct to the Press, 1 have
nothing to do with the business arrangements.
The Dial has sacked me; so there will be no more Paris letters. Public
laments over this might be useful. I don't expect there will be any unless
they are engineer'd or faked by my friends. The Dial reader, biologically
speaking, the 'Dial reader', will probably be glad to have me eliminated.
I don't know where to go next. As far as I can see, my communication
with America is over. I.e., public communication. The last link severed.
That utter skunk djias invited me to contribute to
Vanity Puke; but he wants me to emit the kind of assininity used in
Vanity Puke; and that can't be did. Besides it wdn't. constitute communi-
cating. To communicate one must say something one means, not merely
dress up as a Bostonese jack-ass.
Waal, there it be. If any of you people exiled in America want news
from the front you'll have to organize a demand. Or find some editor who
will stand for it.
I haven't seen any of the other once-high-brow magazines. Do they
still exist? Are they still glued to 1876?
*55
Paris
The Criterion wants me to send in stuff; i.e., that is in London; the The
Criterion has to be so heavily camouflaged as Westminster Abbey, that the
living visitor is not very visihle. On the other hand, imperfect Paris is still
breathing, respiring.
The Three Mts. is following this prose series by a dee looks edtn of my
Cantos (about 16 of 'em, I think) of unrivalled magnificence. Price 2j
dollars per copy, and 50 and 100 bones for Vellum and illuminateds.
It is to be one of the real bits of printing; modern book to be jacked up
to somewhere near level of mediaeval mss. No Kelmscott mess of illegi-
bility. Large clear type, but also large pages, and specially made capitals.
Marse Henry (Strater) doing these; and the sketches already done are A.-i.
Not for the Vulgus. There'll only be about 60 copies for sale; and about
1 5 more for the producers.
And so on.
197: To William Bird
Paris, (? December)
Further developments.
M.P., accompanied by a beautiful and
distinguished American authoress, visited M. le
Commissaire de police, dans son bureau, as invited.
He discussed the sins of Scandinavians at length,
also their propensities to dance above his head at three
a.m.
he pointed out that the Scandinavians also had a
piano, ils ne sontpas des musiciens mais ils
jouent au piano.
After some discussing M. le Commissaire wrote:
Monsieur {Pound) repondquilest compositeur de musique
et quilest nicessaire quit fosse du bruit,
that he makes no more noise than habitually.
No further developments save that M. Antheilhas
continued the composition of his second violin sonata,
and broken the — bflat base hammer of his Steinway
(' a good tough * piano).
2(6
1924
198: To William Bird
Florence , 10 April
Dear Bill: Yrs. to D. to hand. There seems nothing to do but print 60
copies with Strater designs (or 70 copies) and the rest with plain red letters.
Or better, let me have proofs of all designs to see how they have come
out. 2 were O.K. (once).
I never sanctioned any loveknots in the lower right hand corner. I tried
to get Mike to do something decent by confining him to the caps. Restricted
space to intensify output.
The 'A' and the 'H' were O.K. in one stage, but the quality of the line
wd. depend on final form. You understand Fm not worrying so long as I
am absolootly helpless.
I do want at least ten copies either with plain red caps (all) or with plain
red caps (some) and the Mike ornaments on the caps that have come out
well.
My other letter was too brief, but I was trying to hold down to essen-
tials. I appreciate the quality of the printing, paper, presswork — every-
thing that you have done. But with some standing as art critic, I can't
sanction all them damn curleycues and Mike's relapse into the same state of
idiocy he was in when I first found him. All you can now do is, I take it, to
print some copies with Strater ornaments and some either wholly without
'em or with those that I can approve. For which purpose of approval, for
XTs his sake send me proofs of all the ornaments now (proofs needn't be
made on press). — / — /
At any rate my minimum demand is 20 copies that I can approve, i.e.,
with plain red caps in place of designs that to my mind offend.
The 4 A 9 and the *W were O.K. in the last form I saw them in. The
small *T* was excellent.
Have probably been god damn fool to trust design to man not working
straight in medium. Only the lead blocks of black and white do occasion-
ally come out extremely well. (And the small * T' was O.K.)
About the C P\ Can't have the tail to it in my copies. Print yr. 70 and
R 257
Paris
The Criterion wants me to send in stuff; i.e., that is in London; the The
Criterion has to be so heavily camouflaged as Westminster Abbey, that the
living visitor is not very visihle. On the other hand, imperfect Paris is still
breathing, respiring.
The Three Mts. is following this prose series by a dee looks edtn of my
Cantos (about 16 of 'em, I think) of unrivalled magnificence. Price 25
dollars per copy, and 50 and 100 bones for Vellum and illuminateds.
It is to be one of the real bits of printing; modern book to be jacked up
to somewhere near level of mediaeval mss. No Kelmscott mess of illegi-
bility. Large clear type, but also large pages, and specially made capitals.
Marse Henry (Strater) doing these; and the sketches already done are A.-i.
Not for the Vulgus. There'll only be about 60 copies for sale; and about
1 5 more for the producers.
And so on.
197: To William Bird
Paris, {? December)
Further developments.
M.P., accompanied by a beautiful and
distinguished American authoress , visited M. le
Commissaire de plice, dans son bureau, as invited.
He discussed the sins of Scandinavians at length,
also their propensities to dance above his head at three
a.m.
he pointed out that the Scandinavians also had a
piano, ils ne sontpas des musiciens mais lis
jouent au piano.
After some discussing M. le Commissaire wrote:
Monsieur {Pound) repondqu'ilest compositeur de musique
et quilest nicessaire quit fosse du bruit,
that he makes no more noise than habitually.
No further developments save that M. Antheilhas
continued the composition of his second violin sonata,
and broken the — bflat base hammer of his Steinway
(' a good tough ' piano).
x%6
1924
198: To William Bird
Florence, 10 April
Dear Bill: Yrs. to D. to hand. There seems nothing to do but print 60
copies with Strater designs (or 70 copies) and the rest with plain red letters.
Or better, let me have proofs of all designs to see how they have come
out. 2 were O.K. (once).
I never sanctioned any loveknots in the lower right hand corner. I tried
to get Mike to do something decent by confining him to the caps. Restricted
space to intensify output.
The 'A* and the 'H* were O.K. in one stage, but the quality of the line
wd. depend on final form. You understand Fm not worrying so long as I
am absolootly helpless.
I do want at least ten copies either with plain red caps (all) or with plain
red caps (some) and the Mike ornaments on the caps that have come out
well.
My other letter was too brief, but I was trying to hold down to essen-
tials. I appreciate the quality of the printing, paper, presswork — every-
thing that you have done. But with some standing as art critic, I can't
sanction all them damn curleycues and Mike's relapse into the same state of
idiocy he was in when I first found him. All you can now do is, I take it, to
print some copies with Strater ornaments and some either wholly without
'em or with those that I can approve. For which purpose of approval, for
XTs his sake send me proofs of all the ornaments now (proofs needn't be
made on press). — / — /
At any rate my minimum demand is 20 copies that I can approve, i.e.,
with plain red caps in place of designs that to my mind offend.
The 'A' and the *H' were O.K. in the last form I saw them in. The
small *T' was excellent.
Have probably been god damn fool to trust design to man not working
straight in medium. Only the lead blocks of black and white do occasion-
ally come out extremely well. (And the small * T ' was O.K.)
About the *P\ Can't have the tail to it in my copies. Print yr. 70 and
R 257
Paris
then mutilate the block by removal of tail at line marked and omission of
design. Or else use the old device of ordinary small cap in square.
Only do for gawd's sake bear in mind that I want nothing that will hit
you financially and that I do appreciate your activity in the whole matter
and that I am not indulging and will not indulge in any soul tantrums,
romantic qualms, hysterias, etc. Merely that I must have a few copies of
the book that won't turn my stomach. As far as the collectors go, the value
of the book will be only higher. There will be fewer ornamented copies
and only those in the know will get the plain letter copies, author's
approval and autograph. If the plain ones aren't snapped up at once, they
will be sold at the tail end when the price has been raised anny howe. You
said each sheet wd. be — what was it? — individual hawl, so that removal of
ornament after 70 copies have been printed oughtn't to complicate yr. life
very much.
Henry's last pathetic note was to the effect that he hoped to please me
and that he didn't care a cuss about the subscribers.
Lacrymae return.
And don't let's be dahn hearted.
199: To William Bird
Florence^ 17 April
Deer Bull: 1. 1 had no intention of giving away 20 copies. I wanted 'em to
be sold to people who won't stand Mike's illustrations and who will sit on
my chest and bellyache about 'em tomorrow an' tomorrow an' tomorrow.
I enclose Mike's letter which might be taken as licence to eliminate
superfluous muck — such as the love knot in lower right hand corner. Also
if we can't — for technical reasons have a few clean copies, it seems to me
all the more reason for cutting away offending parts: i.e. 1) the love knot;
2) the tail of *P'; and 3) the extra scene across top of page: P .
It will be perfectly easy to do this, though I see (and saw) that it wd.
probably be too difficult to effect composition of lines inside the loop of
the'P.' — / — /
Oh yes. Point was to restrict Strater to design. Instead of staying in the
design, he has wandered all over the page. I know that he started in correct
ambition to make the page good as a whole. But it has in this case bitched
the original idea. He said in his letter that the stuff had got 'sophisticated 9
i.e., apparently lost all quality.
258
1924— aetat 38
Re yr. last: the only course now open is to cut away superfluous rub-
bish. Ci inclus: the tail of ' P' and the scene across the top of the page. And
other such delenda in other caps. Such operations as can be performed by
simple scission and omission. Considering the amu of work you have put
into the matter, I don't see why you want the edtn. damaged by retention
of same. As to the quality of line in the 'P', it is equal to any 1890, Walter
Crane hammered brass. — / — /
As to work: I have had to scrap a full year's work more than once. That
is what art is and why it is so damn rare. Mike may think he has spent a
year on this job, but most of the year he spent on his private life.
Certainly the edtn is to stay within the 100. The 20 copies I mentioned
were intended to come out of the 100 (careful reading of my last effusion
shd. (?corroborate) this), and to be for sale.
However, as you point out so Konclusively diat the block has to be the
same in all copies, that is washed off. And we concentrate on elimination —
economical, but severe. And you leave Mike to me.
Do you want me to write him? I can't until I see the whole set of letters
anyhow. And ha J come to conclusion that it wd. be waste effort and there
wasn't enough likelihood of his ever learning anything to make it worth
the postage and expenditure of time.
As to how much time you are putting into the job, I think I can guess.
As anybody who has ever made a good job of anything knows the last 2%
of excellence takes more time than the other 98%. That's why art and
commerce never savvy one another.
200: To William Bird
Assisi, 7 May
D.B.: Do recall that the title of that book is * A DRAFT of 16 Cantos for a
poem of some length.' If you will stick to that you will produce something
of gtr. val. to collectors. Also it ain't an epic. It's part of a long poem. Yr.
best ad is the quiet statement that at auction recently a copy of Mr. P's
ALumeSpento published in 1908 at $1.00 (one dollar) was sold for $52.50.
No use selling people things on false pretences. The collector will prefer
this half-time report on the poem to a pretended complete edition.
*59
Paris
201: To William Bird
Rapallo, (? November)
Dear Bill: Better put it nemo obstabat.
Re Studio. If Hem don't want it, can yr. friends find 2000 fr. recompense
for beds, cookstoves, electric wiring? Or how much can they find?
I don't suppose the landlord (lady) will accept the same franc rent again,
but equivalent in $'s. It is now only $1 5 a month; it was $30 when we took
it. Also do yr. friends want the cat} And will they let me leave Koum^'s
big picture until further notice? If they dislike it, they can put it face to
wall on gallery.
Now to something serious. I am leaving this address for parts unknown
and they've got to damn well stay unknown. Mail from friends will reach
me with 48 hour delay. As this wd. be inconvenient for 3 Mts. Press, I con-
fide to you that my address is now: Albergo Monte Allegro^ Rapallo.
But keep it to yourself. Stuff sent to the (Hotel) Mignon and callers
arriving there will reach me soon enough.
I suppose nemo is declinable and nil isn't. Error by bhloody analogy.
Anyhow, I haven't any works of ref. to hand.
No. The Studio is not viewable till I get back.
I am not yet working full six cylinders, but am considerably nearer alive
than when you last saw me.
202: To R. P. Blackmur
Rapallo, 30 November
Dear Mr. Blackmur: Adagio ! Give me a little time, perhaps I may even
manage a little cosmogony. The first impression of life is somewhat
chaotic. Mind you, I can't at this stage guarantee to indicate the curvatures
of Euc- or non-Euclidean space with a precision that will satisfy the Ecole
Polytechnique. And we agree, je crois, that one can no longer put Mt.
Purgatory forty miles high in the midst of Australian sheep land.
Why the 100 readers? There were only five men hanged with Villon, or
rather without him. Nobody can pay 25 dollars for a book. I know that.
I didn't make the present economic system. The book, of course, can't be
made for 25 bucks. Not if Strater and Bird and I were to be paid. That is
not the point.
260
1924— aetat 39
Neither is it my fault if America is so mentally and spiritually rotten as
to permit filth like S and Article 211 of the U.S. Penal Code to lie
around empesting the atmosphere.
My American publishers do not exist. It becomes more and more
evident that the American publisher must be left out of one's calculations.
Likewise English and henglish publishers. There may some day be a
cheaper continental edition. One hopes that the Three Mts. and McAl-
mon's press in Paris will lead to some more general system of printing
over here. At least I have suggested the matter. I do not, personally, intend
to devote much energy to it; and as I see things at present, I shall never
again take any steps whatever to arrange publication of any of my work in
either England or America. Tant pis pour les indigenes. They will have to
cure their own sores and spew out their idols.
There will be a public copy of the XVI in the Malatestiana at Cesena, if
Dazzi consents to house it for me. Dad has typescript of XVIII and XIX,
but I do not want them commented on^yet. Etc.
203: To Wyndham Lewis
Rapallo^ 3 December
Wall, ole Koksum Buggle: I have just, ten years an a bit after its appear-
ance and in this far distant locus, taken out a copy of the great magenta
cover'd opusculus {BLAST). We were hefty guys in them days; an' of
what has come after us, we seem to have survived without a great mass of
successors, save possibly the young Robert (not with the terminal -s) and
in another line the young Gawge (Antheil). (I think I asked A.B. to
deliver you a copy of my leetle Blarst on that subjek.)
I have never been converted to your permanenza or delayed dalliance in
the hyperborean fogs, ma! ! Having rejuvenated by 15 years in going to
Paris and added another ten of life by quitting same, somewhat arid, but
necessary milieu, etc. . . .
Am also letting out another reef in my long job. Installment of which
should soon be inspectable. XVI have gone on, I think with more kick,
since arrival here.
Question being (now that we have emerged, or if you like, now that I
have emerged) from varia, that you found alien: Can we kick up any
more or any new devilment ? ?
I am going down to Etna, d.v. in a fortnight. Have you any sugges-
261
Paris
tions?? I don't know what the you are doing. It strikes me
that ten or a dozen black designs about the size of this type sheet wd. be
serviceable.
(Can't remember whether I have ever discussed Strater's initials with
you. Need something for press, etc. etc. etc. proportion of design lines to
type. Lot of boring detail — had to be . . . between printer and ornator.)
Neither here nor there, but perhaps ten or a dozen designs for the two
cantos dealing with Hell might be circulatable. As that section of the poem
can not be circulated freely.
You did years ago in Kens. Gds. discuss a book of verse and designs. In
this case it wd. be designs only but with cantos as reference.
You will readily see that the 'hell' is a portrait of contemporary
England, or at least Eng. as she wuz when I left her.
I don't know that the designs need have much to do with the text, or
anything. Merely that I have failed on various occasions in attempts to
ram unrelated designs of yours into the continental maw; and shd. like a
try at ramming designs related, or supposed to be related to something
that had already gone in.
The de luxe had more than paid for itself some time ago. 2 of 100 buck
copies had gone when I last heard, and requisite number of the 25, also
some of die 50.
Anyhow, wait till you see the text, and if you approve, or if it starts you,
I shd. be glad to try either to make Bird print 'em, or to get some other sort
of ballyhoo in action on the matter.
Have also iron in fire for some more general sort of publishing that the
3 Mts. offers and more satisfac. than afforded in Eng. or Am. pub. circles.
(In parenthesis, I aimed a kick at that D.B. this morning.
This purely en passant. Of no importance. Really a country that will
tolerate that pyper for any purpose, even that of wiping pigs' arses, is
beneath the jo level.)
It rained yesterday, the feast of St. Bibiana. That is said to mean rain for
forty days. So that I shd. have leisure to attend to your correspondence if
there were any Benedictions.
P.S. You understand this suggestion of designs for the hell is merely an
idea that came to me as I was writing this note. If you can think of some-
thing better, blaze away. Only I think the idea often or twelve blacks of
size that cd. go by post, and that cd. be done in line block, might be useful.
No use trying to drag JJ.A. or W. Robs, or anything or anyone else into
it. The rest of our companions presumably have belonged to the decade
just past. Apart from Robert and young George I think the rest of the
buds have disappeared in unblossomed fragrance.
26%
1924— aetat 39
Whether we can produce further and larger detonation by a new com-
bination I leave to yr. wisdom to konsider.
I can't and don't believe in Mr. Ingres. In-gress. Nor Seurat, nor
Greco, nor ... oh damn it all. . . .
I am not very sure about Cfaanne. But I like Rousseau's Baboons, and
the warts on Feddy Urbino's nose.
And I think . . . some of the chunks of Manet's execution picture ...???
The Timon, on Plate V of BLAST, still looks O.K. etc.
204: To William Bird
Taormtna, 26 December
On further consideration, better not send copy Cantos to Hardy. He may
drop off at any moment. Don't want the hell to fall into the wrong hands
until there are enough later chants to bring it into proportion with the
hole.
Lov to Sally. An a 'appy New Year.
263
PART III: RAPALLO
I92£
20 j : To James Joyce
Stracusa, 21 January
Can't make out whether Jean de Gourmont wants to translate it or wants
me (porca santa) to trad. In any case as he is a gentleman, send him a line.
His firm ought to do Dubliners. Also you might smoke 'em up to start the
series of continental editions of contemporary English books — before
Berlin does.
P.S. J. d. G.'s address is 71 rue des Sts. P£res, in case his handschrift is
more illegible than mine.
206: To William Bird
Palermo, 25 January
Dear Bill: Bozze reed. Complimenti. Much finer than I had expected.
Also various things of Henry's look O.K. in double page [drawing] that I
had disliked in single [drawing].
He has the larffff on us for p. 16 [drawing] because it wd. have goed
better the way he meant, only we fergotttt abaht the * C ' on the next page.
Vurry noble work. And up to date no misprint of any importance — only
an 1 for an o at the end of Piccinini, where it don't matter a cuss. Mos'
remarkable. Even the subject matter don't seem so objectionable.
II. Have you a spare page 31 (Canto IX)? Preferably with red. It don't
matter about the type. I shd. like to send that sheet to the ole archivista at
Ravenna who made me the sketch of the ox-carts. Don't think he reads
English. Want enough of page to show him it is part of a book, not a
detached picture. Can be sent folded once from top to bottom, but not up
the perpendicular middle of page. Not matter of life and death. But if there
is a spare slip of that page, on the top arf, can you send it?
III. — / — / Am much more pleased than I Xpected to be. And satisfied
with Strater where I had before been worried abaht his effex.
*«7
Rapallo
Engkore mes compleemengs.
Also size of bok. is pleasant. Can be held on lap, not too heavy, and type
read at that distance. A bhloody ghood job. After awl yr. night sweats.
Placuit occulis.
207: To Simon Guggenheim
Rapallo, 24 February
Dear Sir: Permit me to congratulate you on the terms in which your
Memorial Foundation is announced. For the first time I see an endowment
that seems to have a chance of being effective. That is to say, the terms of
the announcement do not of necessity imply defeat of the announced
object.
Are you going to pick the men who can do the work? 1 mean to say, an
American college picks a football team or a rowing crew intelligently; they
take men who have the capacity for the job.
Every other educational endowment, at present, tends to produce medi-
ocre students and to stop the good man just as soon as he starts. Thousands
of music students paid, and hardly one composer, possibly no composer of
merit. In literature, situation worse.
The most damnable and idiotic reply I ever received in my life was from
my old professor, Schelling, when I was trying to persuade him to admit
some men of literary ability (proved ability) to the benefits of the literary
scholarships of his dept. He wrote me: 'The University is not here for the
unusual man.'
This reply is beyond imagination if you consider what civilization is
and what the Renaissance was. And that you can no more get results in
art, literature, the amenities, from mediocre minds than you can get ath-
letic records from mediocre bodies.
I am not writing thus hotly, and thus without form and due introduc-
tion, on theory. I have in my eye and have had for some time, flagrant
cases of men of unusual ability hampered, infamously hampered, by finan-
cial stress, while hundreds of mediocrities swallowed up America's heavy
endowments.
In the case of T. S. Eliot it may be too late to intervene. I don't know
that the man's mind has been killed; he is fairly tough; but for ten years he
has been entirely held off from research (that after full academic equipment
and post grad. work). And his literary production has been reduced to a
minimum, and that not of his best potentiality, from fatigue.
268
1925— aetat 39
I will go into details if you answer my letter. I have written unceasingly
for fifteen years on this and kindred subjects. Literature and the arts are the
best means of inter-communication; the most condensed, the least likely to
be vain argument.
The whole of our literature suffers from ignorance; and the American
parody of German philology is often, most often, not a system of enlight-
enment but a conspiracy to prevent the student from learning more than
his teacher.
The second case is George Antheil. I send you, separate, book on him.
He don't need to be advertised, but as I have no money I can only take the
indirect means. There are plenty of stage pianists; one has in the case of
Antheil a man capable of making something; he ought to live in sanitary
conditions, with piano and necessary instruments for experiment. I have
given him what money I can spare (which amounts to nothing, a month's
rent or so) but he ought to be kept a composer, not diluted into an
executant.
I take it Marianne Moore of New York is another case where subsidy
would be repaid. All these three people are known to be steadily indus-
trious and capable of producing results.
I don't know whether Wyndham Lewis comes within the scope of your
endowment.
Gaudier went to his death in the war, but John Quinn would have kept
him if he had lived.
I have a sort of right to ask these questions; I have my fifteen years of
steady production and research (at my own charge and cost and with
opposition rather than help) behind me; and the proof of this is in my
published works. I want to know whether your endowment will consider
the claims of exceptional men or whether it is to be limited by red tape and
examination records.
I will take any trouble you see fit to impose to present the claims of a
few men whose work seems to be worthy of support. In each case the
nominee is capable both of research, investigation, and execution.
I know how these things go; I remember Harrison's scholarships for the
'extension of knowledge,' I think the phrase is. I tried to discuss the matter
with him (I had held a fellowship under the trust). All I could get out of
him was that he 'knew nothing about the matter, he wished to erect a
monument to his father/
As nearly as I can judge from the terms of your announcement, your
endowment represents a new phase. You really want the goods delivered.
The only way to make a civilization is to exploit to the full those indi-
viduals who happen to be given by nature the aptitudes, exceptional apti-
269
Rapallo
tudes, for particular jobs. By exploit I mean that they must be allowed to do
the few things which they and no one else can.
If this note is harsh, set it down to my desire for clarity; if disjointed, to
a desire for brevity. (I can explain in a later letter any point that may arouse
your attention.) And in conclusion: if there ever was a man who worked
constantly and without reward for fifteen years for the very objects your
endowment professes to further, I am that man. And as such might per-
haps be allowed to help prevent wastage of ability.
208: To H. L. Mencken
Rapallo, February
Dear Mencken: I might have written to you on this matter some time ago,
except that one tried to get things done without bothering others. How-
ever I seem to be so far out of touch with . . . etc. ... to such a degree,
etc. . . .
Will you have a look at Cheever Dunning's The Four Winds, clearing
your mind of any impression you may have of his stuff written before this
vol.
I sent it to Liveright with hope of getting it published, but L's advisors,
whom I have always thought a set of goddamd idiots, seem to have carried
the contrary.
I am as aware as you will be that the opus is more or less in the dialect of
Swinburne, Rubaiyat, Dowson, etc. . . . but I don't see that it matters (i.e.
in this case).
You are in better position than I am for placing the book, as you are less
tied up with free verse affiliations (not that I have ever been fanatic on the
subject of line length, but nearly everyone who has flocked about me is).
I suppose the day labourers in the — vineyard no longer: hayfield — can
see only one thing at a time.
Annyhowe: I wish you would have a look at the mss.
Dunning is 47, first case I have met where a chap has done mediocre and
submediocre stuff up to such an age, and then pulled the real thing. (Mr.
Eliot don't like it, but then he don't see either Yeats or Hardy); possibly
Dunning is of our generation and concealed from the young.
170
1925— aetat 39
209: To R. P. Blackmur
Rapalb, 26 March
Dear Mr. Blackmoor: Stray bits of curiosity re unfinished work have no
general utility. Or at least very slight utility.
The question remains whether you are amusing yourself or whether
you want to collaborate in la vie litt£raire, a vie rather more potential than
actual, but still . . . one has a shot at trying to maintain it, now and again.
I have, as you may know, spent a good deal of time trying to establish
or maintain communication between the two sides of the Atlantic, to circu-
late the better works of the day, etc. . . .
McAlmon, who is possibly the most fertile of your contemporaries, is
also the one who is now working harder than anyone else for the general
utility, and distribution of interesting contemporary work.
1. Why shouldn't you collaborate with a chap called Edwin Seaver, who
writes to me from Woodstock, Ulster Co., N.Y.?
2. With the Three Mountains Press, 19 rue d'Antin, Paris, ire.
3. As to being of use to me ? ? You can't be any use re Cantos. The Three
Mts. can look after them.
There is, however, a certain amount of uncollected prose that ought,
perhaps, to appear as a volume. Not on your private press, but from a
publisher.
There is the question of whether the eight Dial letters, which I happen
to have reread this A.M. are more useful than Paulito's recollection of
having sat on Sarah's lap.
There is also a point that has not been raised: i.e., whether I haven't out-
lined a new criticism or critical system. I don't propose to go back over my
printed stuff, volumes, etc and detach this. But there is material for an
essay, or a Ph.D. thesis, or a volume.
Even if I had the time I shd. run against copyright and publishers'
agreements if I tried to plunder several of my own volumes to make a new
short book about the length of my AntheiL
As to establishing any sort of milieu in America: it is not my job, and I
can't be expected to see from this distance who could compose such a bear-
able milieu.
Both Seaver and H. S. Gorman have written me letters which 9how
traces of intelligence.
At the start a man must work in a group; at least that seems to be the
effective modus; later in life he becomes gradually incapable<of working in
271
Rapallo
a group. But in any case no one man can do everything, or be the whole of
a milieu.
A man, at the start, before he is committed to 78 separate and interlock-
ing feuds, can often establish a communication between various camps,
which an older man could not.
1 don't know, from here, why various people in America seem to exist
to total oblivion of each other: 50, 50, sometimes good reasons, sometimes
none.
Seaver seems to be the only person who wants to run something to
take the place The Little Review had in 19 17. After eight or ten years one
might suppose there was room for a little liveliness. Possibly in Paris? and
not in the U.S.?? Of course, you may feel that you are isolated and with-
out influence etc., but I doubt if you are any worse off than I have been at
various periods, as before starting of Egoist, or in case of Z./?., etc., or
when I was trying to get Dubliners into print or in minor cases unrecorded
and not worth digging up.
But whatever you want to do, you will I think find the following mode
or procedure almost necessary.
1 . Make up your mind what you want.
2. Find two or three men of your own generation.
3. Conspire, and incidentally find out what points you agree on, and
what you consider essential, and what most important.
4. Invoke the nearest power, not necessarily a very large one. Say in
your case, a chap like Gorman who has some access to print.
5. Remember that you can only put across one or two things, or
authors, at a time. (Imagism had three specifications, but the 2nd., i.e., the
important one, was omitted by the time the noise reached the boobs.)
210: To William Bird
Rapallo >, 18 August
Dear Bill: Hemingway has been killed by a bull in Saragossa.
Antheil on way to fighting in the Riff where he hoped to get a little
experience and conduct an airplane attack, has been CRUSHED BY A
CITROEN auto-caterpillar.
McAlmon is standing for Parliament for division of Bermondsey and
Scrope, on conservative ticket, by-election to unseat Joynson Hicks. Good
chance of winning.
»7*
1925— aetat 39
Mr. Ford Madox Ford is personally supervising the erection of a ceno-
taphary sarcophagus in his honour being erected by the Legion of
Honour at Chantilly.
Bill Bullitt has been copped by the high-jackers in Texas, but it is hoped
he will recover.
Stef has given birth to a son, at Lausanne.
Thought you might like to know, but don't see that you can do any-
thing about it. Mr. Joyce has gone on a yachting cruise in his son's steam
yacht with sails called the Daisy Claire. It is rumored that there are no
women among the party. Yrs ever contritely.
211: To William Bird
Rapalloy 24 August
Deer Bull: If you will go thru the archives of the late Mme Rosen, o.b.e., I
think you will find a Xtrak from the fascist organ of Rimini stating that the
opus is a capolavoro magnifico.
It was carried thru the village, not on a triumphal ox-cart draped with
scarlet, but at any rate with due order by il Commandante. (I declined to
see the sindaco, but expressed no unwillingness that he shd. gaze on the
edition.)
Marchetti stated that he had shown my poem 'anche a Domini Deo.'
The copy was placed in the Malatestiana at Cesena by my own honour-
able hands with fitting inscription, and various of the studiosi were later
assembled (in my absence) and those who cdn't stumble thru English 'ad it
hexplained. Dazzi very much surprised when I said Hell cantos wd. not
travel thru American post. (That shows what a proper Dantescan educa-
tion will do for a man. He said no modern Eyetalian wd. have the guts to
do 'em. That they were of a vigore propriamente Americano.)
They really need the Geryon to elucidate 'em. 1 read Dazzi the Sidg.,
the Hell and the new typescript (Geryon) XVIII and XIX (which you
maysho'tlysee).
The copy was not sent from yr. office to Cesena; that is prob. why you
have no official record. Copy sent here, and I toted it over.
Thanks for the Malatesta Roma and Japan sheets reed. Am sending the
Roma to il Commandante; and ascertaining whether the museum is ready
to frame and hang the vellum. If it ain't, they will do very nicely here. Am
glad to see the vellum, with space enough to see the proportion; couldn't
s 273
Rapallo
get full effect in print shop. I see some reason for the vellum edtn. I also see
that the Whatman takes a better imprint than the Roma, but the stink !!!!!!!
and the transparency of the paper seem to me to make it most ondesirable
sort of paper to print anything but obstetric woiks on. — / — /
212: To William Bird
Rapallo, 1 1 November
Deer Bill: — / — / Do you want story of my meeting with Carson the
Desert Rat, in 1910, before he made 20 millions? I can't have it spoofed, or
Frank Harris'd or presented as a search for Irriwaddi basketwork patterns
by an intrepid searcher of the Afrikan sands. I think it might save you
thinkin up a weekly article, but decline to supply the data unless you agree
to use it soberly or not at all. Supposing Carson is the inventor feller I
knew, I do, however, appear to have picked a winner, the one and only
time I ever tried to pick one outside the purlieus of aht and letters. Alas for
art and letters that thru no fault of mine or the inventor's the deal did not
go thru in 1910. Ace. to last reports C.G.C. is now sittin in a sailor's
boardin house in Frisco, with 20 millions and not a gawddamn idea what
to do with same (but firmly and rightly determined not to be diddled).
I don't know whether it is a case for Wm. Ivy or for the late H. James.
However, you can let your fancy play as to the course of modern art if I
had had an income, esp. during the 1912-14 period, Epstein, Gaudier,
Lewis, and also to lesser extent, litterchure, with printing and distrib.
facilities. And, later, Brancusi's temple etc. Mewsikal seasons, etc.
And in lit. we suppose the moral effect of all the and demi-
standin' round, hopin' and trying to do right.
Of course, I shd. by now have been puffikly insufferable . . . ma . . . that
don't hinder the play of fawncy. Besides it is not good publicity at the
present stage of our campaign (if you call it that), die point being to in-
flame in public mind with the idea of lettin* us spend its money in a intelli-
gent manner. And therefore not a matter to play die ass about.
*74
1926
213: To E. E. Cummings
Rapallo, 10 November
Dear Cummings: Three weeks of bad weather, driving one off the tennis
court and the general spread of Vinalism thru the 'field of murkn licher-
ture,' possibly resurgence of early and perneecious habit, have driven me
to consider a infinitesimal review as ' outlet/
I suppose you ought to be consulted about it. I shd. like to have you at
hand to parody my editorials before they get into print; the difficulty of
getting any simple fact or idea into terms simple enough for transmission
even to the smallest conceivable number of subscribers . . . etc. . . .
It will not, need we say, pay. I shall probably offer head money, but no
rates. Spectamur agendo; or rather, not by the act but the effect shd., etc.,
the value be judged.
In your case I shd. incline to overlook your early misfortunes.
I wonder if Bishop and his scholastic friends have done any more Pro-
venjal philology (a little of it might be useful to annoy my more modern
collaborators ... if I get any). In fact, any measures that wd. save the pro-
posed affair from the monumental pomposity of both our generations.
(Parenthesis: can't afford suppression or stoppage by Customs House, at
the outset.) However, the natural functions are probably known by now
to the majority of our possible readers.
Is there anyone whom one ought to have, that all of our honoured, per-
haps too highly, contemporaries absolootly refuse to print at any price?
I don't want anything people can sell, or that they wd. find useful to
them in keeping the wolverine from the portals. (Neither do I want slabs
of ' work in progress ' unless there is some vurry speshul reason for it.)
Can't announce publication till I get at least three items of interest.
P.S. No objection to perfectly serious articles if the authors thereof
have anything to say.
In yr. own case, you needn't feel obliged to keep up to your godawful
reputation for cleverness (perhaps you find it rather constricting at
moments . • . like, let us say, Possum's rep. for decorum and subtlety).
There were bits of The E. Room that were good and not in the least bit
clever.
*75
Rapallo
214: To James Joyce
Rapallo, 15 November
Dear Jim: Ms. arrived this A.M. All I can do is to wish you every possible
success.
I will have another go at it, but up to present I make nothing of it what-
ever. Nothing so far as I make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new
cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all the circumambient peri-
pherization.
Doubtless there are patient souls, who will wade through anything for
the sake of the possible joke . . . but . . .
having no inkling whether the purpose of the author is to amuse or to
instruct ... in somma. . . .
Up to the present I have found diversion in the Tristan and Iseult para-
graphs that you read years ago . . . mais apart 5a. . . . And in any case I
don't see what which has to do with where. . . . Undsoweiter.
215: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo , 15 November
Dear Harriet: Have been looking through your last 18 or more numbers,
find many of 'em uncut.
My impression is that you have tried ladies' numbers, children's num-
bers, in fact everything but a man's number. And that you tend to become
more and more a tea party, all m£res de famille, only one fallen woman
among them (and 'er with the sob of repentance).
You might as well admit that trying as you may to be catholic, you miss
being any kind of arena for combat; you get a general air of mildness. One
rich barry tone (Mr. Cullen) in all that soprano . . . and the rest, requested
to lower their voices as it might wake popper if they was to sing out.
Fraid I will hav to take the bad boys off your hands and once again take
up the hickory.
tj6
1926— aetat 41
216: To James Joyce
Rapallo y 19 November
Cher J.: Sorry, I dunno no lawyer. I cabled my father to start proceedings
against Roth last winter; but he didn't as he found it wd. be expensive.
However I did succeed in getting my name off the cover. (In return for
which reed, several obscene and abusive missives from the impeccable
Roth.)
You are in worse shape than I was as you have taken money from him
. . . and you have known for some time that he was a crook. All I can sug-
gest is that you write to as many papers as possible, denouncing Roth, and
stating that text is garbled and unauthorized. There is no known way of
getting at R. as he has only 'desk room', i.e. comes in now and again to
get his mail in an office containing forty other desks (probably of various
flavours and integrities).
I mean if you go to law you have nothing to get damages from.
Are you in communication with Collins?? If so, can you get any in-
formation from him about the art collector, Barnes. Don't say it is for me.
Re your own affair: certainly write (typed letter; they won't read you*
script) and sign your letter to N.Y. Post. That is your best way of annoy-
ing R.
Also you better stir up Jane Heap. It is to interest of Little Review as
well as yours to stop Roth. I have no friends in America. I don't know
whether McAlmon is in N.Y.; you can organize a gang of gunmen to scare
Roth out of his pants. I don't imagine anything but physical terror works
in a case of this sort (with a strong pull of avarice, bidding him to be
bold).
He had nothing to make out of me, so consented to remove my name
from his title page, after I had written to various offices protesting against
his use of my name in his ad. That however was not fear of the law, he
merely saw he had more to lose by having me on the war path than to gain
by having my name on his sheet.
The man is quite clever. He has more interest in the matter than your
lawyer wd. have.
Your only weapon is firmly abusive campaign in the press.
Also you can write to Roth, threatening action. You will get a good
deal of impertinence in reply but still. . . .
You can also state in your letters to press that Parts a/Ulysses that were
printed before suppression are copyright, and that you are proceeding against
277
Rapallo
Roth. (That may make his subscribers nervous about receiving future
numbers.)
However, you have a skunk to deal with and the perfume will possibly
fly.
217: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 30 November
Dear Harriet: I have not, at the moment, any strong objection to visiting
America. I shall probably be horrified if or when I do get there. It is pro-
bably infinitely worse than anything I am prepared for, despite my being
prepared for anything within the range of my imagination. . . . But still
... the risk is not a particular deterrent.
As to lecture tour: the question is simply: what wd. it pay? I can not
afford to do it on the cheap. If I blow all that energy, I have got to have a
few years free from worry after it.
Poverty here is decent and honourable. In America it lays one open to
continuous insult on all sides, from the putridity in the White House down
to the expressman who handles one's trunk.
I don't care to place my head under the guillotine or my feet under the
trolley wheels. — / — /
Poor Walsh; carried his desire of expression perhaps . . . however . . .
(not having seen the poem in question, I can't judge as to the aptitude of
his objection). After all he came down on my head in Poetry (as also did
Carnevali, years ago), and he more recently annoyed Mr. Hemingway,
etc. ... I can't take it very seriously. He had his merits and probably knew
his time was short. Also in the midst of his farragos he occasionally said
something amusing. Tout 5a a une valeur. I don't think Walsh's cursing
did anyone any harm. (For example, Thos. Hardy survives.) I never
noticed the ref. to the anonymous *D.' until your letter called it (this
instant) to my attention.
W. was impulsive; the impulse more often generous than not; and
nearly always at least grandiose. Better than Coolidgism. Though more
obviously open to attack.
Dunning was in Paris last summer. I was very busy with trying out bits
of my opera, and saw very little of anyone. Dunning in good enough form
to beat me two games of chess and draw one, I think, on the one occasion
we had a little spare time.
Yes, I saw your article, if you mean the one that says what a delightful
278
1926— aetat 41
writer I used to be, and what a shame I have probably petered out. Also
you blame Wabash for doing in 1907 very much what you did in 1917, ne
c'estpas?
Miss Moorhead says she is bringing out another number of T(his)
Q(uarter); I don't know whether she means to use the machine supple-
ment I did for them or not. Will prob. be in better shape to discuss matter
with yr. brother after it has come out. If she don't issue it, I am on the way
(more or less) toward a book on 'Art and Machines', both plastic and
acoustic phase. Perhaps your brother cd. help me on one or two matters
when or if the said book materializes.
Have never met Wescott. Thought he was one of The Dial's 'young
men.'
Carnevali's address is II Cavalletto, Bazzano, Bologna, Italy.
I don't honestly know anything more. His letters seem active enough.
Last one was to thank me for a pile of books and old magazines, which
were what he had asked for. (Last year he asked for clothes ... I don't
know whether the difference in the request indicates a difference in degree
of need, or only in quality.)
I personally think extremely well of Mussolini. If one compares him to
American presidents (the last three) or British premiers, etc., in fact one
can not without insulting him. If the intelligentsia don't think well of
him, it is because they know nothing about 'the state,' and government,
and have no particularly large sense of values. Anyhow, what intelli-
gentsia?
What do the intelligentsia think of Henry Ford? He has given people a
five day week, without tying it up in a lot of theoretical bunk. I can't
imagine any labour party consenting to the results; it puts such a lot of
' secretaries ' out of a job.
Re your question is it any better abroad for authors: England gives
small pensions; France provides jobs. A ninth rate slob like Claudel gets a
job as ambassador. Giraudoux, Morand, Cros, etc., etc., get quite comfort-
able posts. Italy is full of ancient libraries; the jobs are quite comfortable,
not very highly paid, but are respectable, and can't much interfere with the
librarians* time.
As to 'betterness,' if I were a citizen of any of these countries I wd. have
some sort of appui, which is unthinkable in America. As for professor-
ships??? I have not been overwhelmed with offers ... I reckon die danger
is not imminent.
You might devote a special number, poesy contest for best estimate of
psychology of the man who paid 20,000 bucks for copy of Poe's Tam-
mammwhatever it is. Interest on 20,000 bucks wd. keep a live writer for
279
Rapallo
life. Wot these dastards lack is a little intelligence. Also I spose they want a
quick turn over. 20,000 invested in Poe in 1850???? what price now? Try
it on yr. financial edtr.
P.S. What has become of A.C.H. ?
218: To James Joyce
RapallO) 25 December
Dear Jim: I answered S(ylvia) B(each)'s letter explaining why I do not
care to sign your protest. I.e. I consider it a miss-fire, that omits the essen-
tial point and drags in an irrelevancy.
I am glad some use has at last been found for Claudel.
I enclose a note that you can use as p.s. to the general protest.
Merry Xmas and greetings to the family.
219: To James Joyce
Rapallo, 25 December
My Dear Joyce: My only reason for not signing your protest is that I con-
sider it misdirected. To my mind the fault lies not with Mr. Roth, who is
after all giving his public a number of interesting items that they would not
otherwise get; but with the infamous state of the American law which not
only tolerates robbery but encourages unscrupulous adventurers to rob
authors living outside the American borders, and with the whole Ameri-
can people which sanction the state of the laws. The minor peccadillo of
Mr. Roth is dwarfed by the major infamy of the law.
You are perfectly at liberty to publish this statement or to make any
use of it you think fit. Parts of Ulysses are protected, as they appeared in
an American periodical, were copyright, and were not suppressed. I under-
stand that Roth has reprinted these parts, in which case he is liable to due
penalty.
280
1927
no: To James Joyce
Rapallo, 2 January
Dear J.: First number of my new periodical designed to deal with various
matters not adequately handled elsewhere has gone to press. I don't see
that it can be much direct and immediate use to you. It comes out 3 times a
year, so that serialization is out of the question.
I think, and always have thought, that the 'sample of woik in prog'
stunt was bad. The transat. did it because there simply wasn't enough copy
to fill the so large review.
If I had an encyclopedicly large monthly, the kewestion wd. be differ-
ent. Present view is that your daruk pool shd. be sold whole on Ulysses
and that further distribution of bits wd. do final sales more harrum than
good. However, I may be wrong. The law-court bit, livens up.
Wot I nevurtheles suggess re the oncoming review is that it will do no
harm to have it circulate freely to such as will pay for it. There are plenty
of seguidores after the act; but it can do no harm to establish a means of
communication that in case of emergency will not have to stop, to hem,
to haw, to whit, to whom, etc.
Notice of forthcoming novels, romans, etc., can be conveyed and at any
rate, the air of ambiguity so . . . shall we say . . . widely ambient . . . etc.
. . . vb. sap.
221 : To SlSLEY HUDDLESTON
Rapalbj 13 February
Dear Sisley Huddleston: Trust you noticed that 25osocialists were arrested
after the Antheil concert in Budapesth. Tis, we ween, such stuff as nooz
are made of.
The young rip is now loose somewhere in Italy with cat, rucksack, no
proper clothing and nothing deeply resembling an address. O (lga ) R (udge >
stood (as the Eyetalians say) to give a Mozart concert in Rome; but judg-
ing from telegrams, mainly indefinite and illegible, the young Antheil will
281
Rapallo
prob. arrive in time to stop it. Also with Casella out of Rome, as O.R. has
long been trying to ram Antheil down Cs thorax or into his concerts, it
is to be presumed that they will thrust his music incontinent upon the
Romans.
As G. A. is due to sail to N.Y. on the 24th for orchestral show and as his
American manager is worrying him for publicity and as he passes it on to
me, I also, leaning toward your vaster bulk, offer the facts to your
clemency.
I am telling ces jeunes gens to send you their photos and program (if
you don't want same, chuck 'em into the scrap and blame it on me).
Possibly the vision of G. A. arriving on platform in walking togs, with
cat and rucksack, to somewhat annoyance of the blondine young gent,
engaged to play Mozart piano parts, etc., perhaps all this is too picturesque
for your high-class and uplifting journals. (And I am not sure you didn't
tell me you do not descend to illustration by photo . . . but I am taking the
chance.)
If you want any more definite data, I will try to have any sent you after
the fact, by post or wire.
The show takes place on the 19th at the Sala Capuzucchi, Rome.
Antheil or no Antheil. Saturday afternoon.
It is all very bouleversant, as A. was expected to go from Buda to Paris
in an orderly fashion. Not, of course, that I ought to feel paternal responsi-
bility in such cases. . . .
Part of the beauty of my anticipation is the vision of the young pyanist
already, I believe, engaged for the show. He is tall, tr£s blond, trfes beau,
composes a bit on his own and fawncies himself a good deal. He has a
name like Circus Maximus. Of course, he may refuse to walk on. It all
offers 'colour,' perhaps lit. val. rather than news val.
The Roman pianist, for one so young, is very classic in his taste; the
Italians only discovered Strawinsky last year. . . .
One shouldn't be nasty about it. Respighi is personally charming.
Strawinsky I suppose is not (judging from looks, tho I have never met
him). Etc. — / — /
222: To William Bird
Rapallo, 4 March
Dear Zsoiseau: Yrs. with the camels to hand.
Wot can you do with Olga's Mussolini business? Have now more
details.
282
1927— aetat 41
Do you want to syndicate Miss Gibson's full article? The Herald 'has
been goddam silly. Miss G. sent 'em the stuff last Friday, with a lot of
highlights.
Olga pulled it off on her own (no Embassy or Murkn Academy strings)
after young Gawge's departure. Muss prefers classics, but O. did what she
cd. to pave way for Antheil audition later, bringing talk round to modern
music and machines. The lowdown Greek Rhooshian Amphitheatre tried
to crab Gawge and spake contempshus of people who take piano for 'per-
cussion instrument.' 'So it is, 9 sez Muss, taking the wind out of Mons.
Circus Minimus.
223: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 23 March
Note the underlined from ' Wings,' advertisement of Licherary Guild.
That is, the selections for one year will probably contain six books of
fiction (novels and short stories) and six selected from history, bio-
graphy, travel, essays, science, and public affairs.
Van Doren, Glenn Frank, Z. Gale, J. W. Krutch, Henrik van Loon,
Elinor Wylie.
I dare say it is the best they can do; but they all (??) represent second-
rate taste and 2nd-rate aspiration. No need of raising that point. Point for
you is that they exclude poetry. Point for me is that they represent the
parochial standard; but pass that. They are the present equivalent of
' Concord' group of the last century. At least I bet halluf a dollah on it.
Probably they couldn't get off one vol. of poetry with their eleven best
sellers anyhow; and if they did they'd pick Eddy Guest.
Question is: can Poetry organize a similar scheme; not of course print-
ing the books, but selecting 6 vols, of poetry a year (prob. better begin on
six) and getting combination price from the publishers in return for distri-
buting a (few) thousand copies of each?
And get a jury with at least one member who has heard of an inter-
national standard of values, who don't think pathriotism consists in pro-
tecting the inferior product but in bringing it up to top level and making
it bite on the nail.
How many subscribers have you?? What percent of 'em would agree
beforehand to say 10 bucks a year for 6 vols, of selected poesy? If there
283
Rapallo
were a thousand, even expensive books like Personae could be supplied in
paper or cardboard back at that rate. I mean books that came inside price
would be uniform with general edition and expensive books cd. be done in
cheaper paper and binding from the same plates.
This might take a little time. The immediate thing is to cry ' haro ! ! ' in
about two lines and quote the Lit. Guild exclusion. Or even better (don't
say the idea comes from me) print the Lit. Guild exclusion and a query:
Are there as a start iooo readers of Poetry who want to combine in
co-operative buying of the best poetry published?
The scheme presents difficulties and suggestions are in order as to
how it can best be managed.
Please say whether you are for it unconditionally; whether you want
only new books; or whether you want us to start with a group of six of
the best vols, already published. No harm in doing both.
Census: Eliot, Sandburg, Bodenheim, H.D., Carlos Williams, Pound.
Go on, fill out list. I spose everybody has Spoon River.
i st, you've got to see how many will subscribe. 2nd, if the publishers
will issue special edtn. for the co-op ters — extra 1000 — at special price.
An offer on six good names for delivery in 4 months' time might lead to
possibility of a second list of newer people. Rorty, Cullen, whoever they
are.
I dunno who is going to be bloody well bored by being jury. I spose Bill
Williams has the necessary pathriotism. I spose I'm the goat, having pro-
posed it. I suggest Bodenheim or some irreconcilable to keep it from get-
ting dead and academic and ladylike.
At any rate ifl am roped in I've got to have one other live member on a
committee of not more than six. I spose there'll have to be one soft-shelled
weeping rube to keep in touch with the great heart of the republic. You
get roped in as the only person who reads all the rot pubd, not as jury but
as executant. If you're too weary of combat, you might let M. Strobel or
Dillon branch off and take charge of the show (not Hen. Fuller, too old;
the thing wants someone active). — / — /
224: To Homer L. Pound
Rapallo, 11 April
Dear Dad: — / — / Afraid the whole damn poem is rather obscure, especi-
ally in fragments. Have I ever given you outline of main scheme ::: or
whatever it is?
284
1927— aetat 41
1. Rather like, or unlike subject and response and counter subject in
fugue.
A. A. Live man goes down into world of Dead
C. B. The ' repeat in history *
B. C. The 'magic moment* or moment of metamorphosis, bust thru
from quotidien into 'divine or permanent world.' Gods, etc.
In Canto XX, fragment in Exile. Nicolo d'Este in sort of delirium after
execution of Parisina and Ugo. (For facts vide, I spose, the Encyclopedia
Britan.)
' "And the Marchese
was nearly off his head
after it all."'
Various things keep cropping up in the poem. The original world of
gods; the Trojan War, Helen on the wall of Troy with the old men fed up
with the whole show and suggesting she be sent back to Greece.
Rome founded by survivors of Troy. Here ref. to legendary founding
of Este (condit (founded) Atesten, Este).
Then in the delirium, Nicolo remembers or thinks he is watching death
of Roland. Elvira on wall or Toro (subject-rhyme with Helen on Wall).
Epi purgos (on wall); peur de la hasle (afraid of sunburn); Neestho (trans-
lated in text: let her go back); ho bios (life); cosi Elena vivi (thus I saw
Helen, misquote of Dante).
The whole reminiscence jumbled or 'candied' in Nicolo's delirium.
Take that as a sort of bounding surface from which one gives the main
subject of the Canto, the lotophagoi: lotus eaters, or respectable dope
smokers; and general paradiso. You have had a hell in Canti XIV, XV;
purgatorio in XVI etc.
The 'nel fuoco' is from St. Francis' 'cantico': 'My new spouse placeth
me in the flame of love.' Then the remarks of the opium smoker about the
men who sailed under Ulysses.
'Voce profondo': with deep voice.
And then resum£ of Odyssey, or rather of the main parts of Ulysses'
voyage up to death of all his crew.
For Elpenor, vide Canto I.
Ear wax, ears plugged so they couldn't hear the sirens.
Neson amumona, literally the narrow island: bull-field where Apollo's
cattle were kept.
Ligur aoide: keen or sharp singing (sirens), song with an edge on it.
That gets most of the foreign quotations.
Tan mare fustes: is Roland's remark to moor who comes up to finish
him off, as nearly as I can remember his sword is broken, fcut he smashes
285
Rapallo
the moor over the head with his horn (olifans: elephant: olifant tusk) and
then dies grumbling because he has damaged the ornaments on the horn
and broken it. Tan mare fustes, colloquial: you came at a bad moment.
Current cabaret song now: J'en ai marre: I'm fed up.
Any more ke-weschuns? ? ?
As to the Rodker: I rather think he gets more into the 90 pages (that
makes the complete nouvelle) than most novelists get into 300. How-
ever. . . . — / — /
225: To H. L. Mencken
Rapallo, 27 April
Dear Henry: Something ought to be done about this scoundrel Roth.
Damn his impertinence. Bloody crook; and the American copyright law is
a worse crook than he is.
Strikes me that you people who pay your authors are as likely to lose by
this impertinent piracy as any one else. If he merely swipes everything that
isn't copyright, he can obviously undersell 'honest enterprise.'
A man named Vestal has put up a decent bill that wd. stop Rothism.
Somebody ought to get out and root for it.
Also you, confound you, with your columns on asinine legislation
ought to dig out Article 211, U.S. Penal Code. You can find it in my
Instigations if you haven't it elsewhere.
226: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 24 September
Dear H.M.: Re your last private communication on the subject of pipe
dreams. I have never said you could make poesy out of dollars. I have —
any time these past twenty years — said that certain methods could be used
advantageously for the amelioration and increase of works of art. The
effect shows more in arts other than poetry, where the artist is bound by
material need in his actual production. I mean he has to have expensive
raw material, paint, stone, a good fiddle, or he has to hire or have hired
expensive executants for musical or dramatic representation,
*8<?
1927— aetat 41
A few kicks are probably good for the poet, but it is not proved that he
should receive a steady stream of them from cradle to monument. Mae-
cenas did not pick the two best poets of his time, but it has taken 2000
years to start a reaction in favour of the fellow he missed.
Dante was better than Petrarch, but the fact can not be blamed on the
gents who asked Petrarch to dinner.
From the patron's angle, Giusto de Conti and Bassinio were the best
poets of their day. There will be no celebrations on their cinquecenten-
nials, but neither will there be celebrations on the cinquecentennials of any
of their contemporaries; they stretched their legs under the same table that
had received Pier della Francesca, Pisanello, Giovan Bellini, Battista
Alberti, Mino da Fiesole; and the young Bassinio, at least, profited, pre-
sumably in head as well as in stomach.
I have never contended that the American millionaire or ' ploot ' was an
idiot. I have said and still maintain that he is an uncivilized barbarian
usually unpleasant and never interested in the arts. He will endow any
number of 'institutions' employing any number of boneheaded dullards
with 'degrees,' in order that they may still further befuddle the young. He
will, in rarer cases, express his dislike of the arts by committees.
If he or she be that curse of god, the 'amateur,' he or she will express his
or her dislike of the arts by trying to present his or her dablets in lieu of
the better contemporary work.
And in proof of bluff we have but to observe the 'hard-headed'
American business man when really interested in something and wishing
to improve the quality of creation. Thus Time for Aug. 8 re Col. E. H. R.
Green (son of Hetty) who is interested in aviation. Sic loquitur Green:
'I want young fellows with good ideas and no money ... to feel that there
is a place where they can come. I will grub-stake them when their ideas
appear sound and let them perfect and experiment. If they develop any-
thing marketable, they can take it out and it is theirs.'
That is to say he knows what he wants, he expects to be interested in
seeing it happen now and not in A.D. 2547 under the auspices of a com-
mittee appointed by the trustees. He is not making a collection of the
extant fragments of the war-machinery found in Byzantium or of models
of Leonardo's project for a monoplane. Neither does he expect to have
apoplectic stroke when some fellow invents something he hadn't thought
of. Q.E.D.
287
Rapallo
227: To Glenn Hughes
Rapallo, 26 September
Dear Dr. Hughes: Your letter (7th inst) has crossed mine.
It wd. not interest me in the least to write my literary autobiography.
You might put one of your students onto the job; wd. probably educate
him a good deal, but I don't see how that form of retrospection cd. be
expected to count as part of my own mental life, and I have no inclination
to start dying before it is necessary.
As to contemporaries, since you ask it, I will, privately, go so far as to
say that Lawrence was never an Imagist. He was an ^mygist. Ford dug
him up and boomed him in Eng. Rev. before Imagism was launched.
Neither he nor Fletcher accepted the Imagist program. When the prospect
of Amy's yearly outcroppings was by her assured, they agreed to some-
thing different. This is not an attack on L's ability as a writer but merely to
emend the statement in yr. circular.
The name was invented to launch H.D. and Aldington before either had
enough stuff for a volume. Also to establish a critical demarcation long
since knocked to hell.
T. E. Hulme was an original or pre-.
Bill Williams was as 'original' as cd. be managed by writing from
London to N.J. Flint was the next acquisition, tho' really impressionist.
He and Ford and one or two others shd. by careful cataloguing have been
in another group, but in those far days there weren't enough non-sym-
metricals to have each a farm to themselves. Several others have since
faded. Lawrence wasn't asked, and Fletcher declined.
The test is in the second of the three clauses of the first manifesto.
Even this amount of reminiscence bores me exceedingly.
228: To James S. Watson, Jr.
Rapallo, 20 October
Dear Watson: It is impossible for me to accept an award except on Cantos
or on my verse as a whole.
It would also be foolish, I think, to send in a prose squib or a criticism
of some Whifflepink like friend Morand. There has been no definite
288
1927— aetat 42
request for Cantos, but there is no other verse available, and will be none.
The available detachable sections are Canto 22 and the part of 27. XXII is
probably too frivolous for your purpose. I suggest that you use the
XXVH by itself; it will take less room and probably cause less friction. It
is also possible to take the Gibraltar fragment, by itself, from point begin-
ning 'And a voice behind me in the street' on page 17 (or red 3).
As the immediate appearance in the Dial is largely a formality perhaps
the XXVII will serve.
It wd. be stupid to make the award on prose-basis as my prose is mostly
stop-gap; attempts to deal with transient states of Murkn imbecility or
ignorance.
229: To Glenn Hughes
Rapallo, 9 November
Dear Hughes: On reading over my translation of Ta Hio, it strikes me that
the acrid and querulous preface I had sketched is a bloody impertinence
and that any attempt to force local application, talk about need of present
America, etc., bloody bureaucracy, etc. etc., would be a damned imperti-
nence. I mean tacking my bloomink preface onto the work itself. Hope
you'll agree.
Seems to me it will be introd. enough if you say in the prospectus:
In this brochure (or chapbook) Mr. Pound does for the first of the
Confucian classics what he did, in Cathay ', for Rihaku.
Any question of method or interpretation of ideograph can wait for or
be referred to Fenollosa's 'Essay on the Chinese Written Character.'
Thanks for the Japanese poets. I like it. In fact the first clean translation
from Japanese I have seen since I did my own job with Fenollosa's re-
mains.
I wonder if Iwasaki is trained in No or if you and he want to undertake
revision of my redaction of Fenollosa's paper on the Noh (or No; better I
think spelled with the V to avoid homograph with simple Murkn
negative).
Don't know whether you know the work (pub. by Macmillan, now out
of print). I think Fenollosa did a lot that ought not to be lost. I had not the
philological competence necessary for an ultimate version, but at the same
time Mrs. F's conviction was that Fen. wanted it transd as literature not as
philology.
Whether it wd. be more bother than worth to go over it and correct
errors, I know not I might want to look over result and possibly re-revise,
T 289
Rapallo
though judging by 3 Jap lady-poets, not to any gt. extent. General prin*
ciple of not putting in mere words that occur in original when they contri-
bute nothing to the sense of the translation.
One wants a Jap on the job, and one wants a Jap who knows Noh. I shd.
like to protect Fenollosa from sonzovbitches like X and in general
from the philologs who were impotent till Fen. showed the way (via
y.v.t.) and who then swarmed in with inferior understandings.
I am perfectly willing to split the proceeds with you and Iwasaki, 50/50.
Mainly depends on how much revise and correction Iwa. thinks the work
needs.
If the work were copper-bottomed and guaranteed correct in every
detail, I don't think there ought to be difficulty in getting a good publisher
or in making it a 'standard work on the subject.' I take it you don't pub.
large vols. Would try this on Harper or Scribners' I think.
At present it is the scattered fragments left by a dead man, edited by a
man ignorant of Japanese. Naturally any sonvbitch who knows a little
Nipponese can jump on it or say his flatfooted renderings are a safer guide
to the styge of that country.
This offer is intended as a compliment.
Re the preface to Ta Hio: I don't think I ought to use Kung as a shoe-
horn for a curse on American State Dept. and the Wilson-Harding
Administrations, etc. At least thass the way I feel this A.M.
Re printing: I think text of Ta Hio shd. be one size type and commen-
tators' remarks (including my own) another, or possibly better italic. I had
thought of having three sizes: 1) Text; 2) Comment; and 3) transfer's
notes; but think it would prob. make ugly page.
Re preface: Wot's use telling 'em they are damn sick? I mean I prefer
trying giving 'em the medicine; if they don't feel better after it or don't
feel they needed it, woss use telling 'em ?
Re the 'Written Character': Will enclose it, or better send it on in a day
or two. I have permission from Liveright to use it in any way we like. I
think it ought to have separate printing apart from huge bulk of Instiga-
tions.
Re Ta Hio: Everything one tends to put into a preface merely tends to
draw red herrings across trail. Most of what I had written wd. merely raise
irrelevant issues re state of America, damnd perversion of Constitution,
sonsovbitches in office, of collapse of Xtianity, goddamnability of all
monotheistic Jew, Mohammed, Xtn. buncomb, etc.
Sol
Cut it aht. If they can't see from the text, they won't see any better from
being irritated by my irritability beforehand.
290
1927— aetat 42
230: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 29 December
Dear H.M.: Orl rit, you put in your bloomink feetnotes, you follow up
and stick in this answer:
Madame: The point of view taken in your footnote to my article in yr.
December number is precisely the point of view that I do not take. It
appears to me to be the 'remains of bourgeois mentality.' I mean that I do
not consider the practice of poetry any more degrading than the practice
of chemical research, and I consider original composition rather more im-
portant than the writing of semi-ignorant theses about the work or
laundry-lists of deceased authors.
In our several thousand of nearly useless institutions of learning no
student has ever been known to reject a scholarship or fellowship or any
form of endowed sop. In fact, budding millionaires often grab them with
great joy in order to slew off an inferiority complex and show that they are
just as good as the sons of the proletariat.
If you wd. once divest yourself of the notion of the author as an object
of charity or of the feeding of authors as a form of preservation of the unfit
and arrive, even if slowly, at the idea of 'aiding production.' Confound it:
production !
Am I expected to respect either myself or anyone else because some
graduated ribbon-clerk offers me 75 bucks for writing blah in a false-pearl
and undies monthly?
Did any 100% Ohioan ever offer Burbank a large salary to interrupt his
work and write ads for the local florist?
There is one source of confusion, namely that a man can get more for
doing rotten writing than he can for doing rotten chemistry. The stan-
dards in science are easier for examiners to get at: or at least they are sup-
posed to be. The confusion between the scientist and the fake is less likely
to occur. But this should not be allowed to obscure the whole and main
difference between stimufotingproJuction and pampering the producer.
Between definite individual desire to stimulate the arts (which means
Maecenism) and pure communism there is only a middle ground of
muddle, blah, sentimentality. Pure communism seems unlikely to affect
the U.S. in our time, pending which I suggest emergency measures on a
line known to be quite efficient. But for gawdzake cut out the idea of the
highschool boy and his gilded medal.
291
1928
231: To Ren£ Taupin
Vienna, May
Cher Monsieur: Naturellement, si vous accordez une inversion du temps,
dans une relativity Einsteinienne, il vous semblera probable que j'ai r^u
Pid£e de Pimage par des po£mes d'H.D. Merits apres que cette id£e etait
rfjue. Voir les dates des livres divers.
J'ai tant 6crit et public k ce sujet — et je ne peux pas 6crire sans machine k
teire.
En 1908-9 k Londres (avant le debut de H.D.): c^nacle T. E. Hulme,
Flint, D. Fitzgerald, moi, etc. Flint, beaucoup fran^ais-ifi^, jamais arriv£ k
condensation. ( . ! Symbolistes francais > les 'ooV k
\ avoir centre ) J T 7
Londres.
contemporaine
veut dire^equivalence
Technique de T. Gautier in ' Albertus.'
Mais tout 5a, j'ai imprint. Voir Pavannes et Divisions et Instigations.
Est-ce-que on peut causer? — ici maintenant ou k Rapallo en Juillet?
Po&ie anglaise (la langue meme) < k racines fr.
consider elements de la langue:
'Anglo-saxon'
latin (£glise — loi) prin.
2nd
franjais 1400
latin scientifique
greek „
Influence fr. sur moi — relativement tard.
Rapports fr.>eng. via Arthur Symons etc. 1890. Baudelaire, Verlaine,
etc
F. S. Flint special number Poetry Review, Londres 191 1 ou 1912. Fort
difference entre Flint: (tolirance pour tomes les fautes et imblcilitls des
pofttes franjais). Moi— examen tr£s s£v&e--et intolerance.
29a
1928— aetat 42
Soi-disant 'imagists' — 'bunch of goups* trop paresseux pour supporter
siviriti de mes premiers 'Don'ts* et du clause ame du manifeste: 'Use no
superfluous word/
Certes progris du technique po&ique. — Fr. en avant. Gautier ' Albertus',
England 1890- 1908. Ce que Rimbaud atteint par intuition (g£nie) dans
certains po£mes, 6rig6 en esth£tique conscient (??peut-etre) — je ne veux
pas prendre une gloire injuste — mais pour tant que je sais. J'en ai fait une
esth&ique plus ou moins systimatique — et j'ai pu citer certains po£mes
de R. comme exemple. (Mais aussi certains po£mes de Catulle.)
Et c'est certain que k part certains proc£d£s d'expressior — R. et moi
n'avons point de rassemblance. Mais presque toute I'exp&imentation, tech-
nique en po&ie de 1830 — jusqu'i moi — £tait faite en France.
En fait de 'pontes,' c'est une autre affaire. II y avait Browning (mSme
Swinburne), Rossetti, E. Fitzgerald, qui s'intdressaient plus qu'aux sujets k
la mattere k exprimer nouveaux qu'aux proc£d£s d'expression.
Vous avez en Poetry, Chicago, (1912, je crois) ma premiere citation des
Fr. contemporaines. Temps des unanimistes.
Avec toute modestie, je crois que j'&ais orient^ avant de connaitre les
pontes frangais modernes. Que j'ai profite de leurs inventions techniques
(comme Edison ou aucun autre homme de science profite des dicouvertes).
Y'a, aussi, les anciens: Villon, les Troubadours.
Vous trouverez en mon The Spirit of Romance, public 19 10, ce que je
savais avant d'aborder les Fr. modernes.
C'est probable que la France a appris de l'ltalie et de l'Espagne.
L'Angleterre de la France et que la France ne peut rien absorber ou
apprendre de l'anglais. (?Probl£me — pas dogme.)
Autre dissociation k faire: quelquefois on apprend, ou subit 'influence'
d'une idee — quelquefois en lutte contre barbarisme, on cherche un appui
— on s'arme du prestige d'un homme civilisi et reconnu pour combattre
l 9 imb£cilit£ am&ricaine.
J'ai cit£ Gourmont, et je viens de donner une nouvelle version du Ta
Hio de Confucius, parce que j'y trouve des formulations d'id&s qui me
paraissent utiles pour civiliser 1' Am&ique (tentatif ). Je r£v£re plutot le bon
sens que l'originalit^ (soit de Rimy de G., soit de Confucius).
Pour y revenir: Je crois que la po&ie franjais soit tres difficilement racine
d'une bon po&ie anglaise ou am£ricaine, mais que la technique des pontes
franjais £tait certainement en 6tat de servir d!iducation aux pontes de ma
langue — du temps de Gautier, jusqu'i 1912.
Que les pontes essentiels 9 k cette £tude, se rtfduisent k Gautier, Cor-
btere, Laforgue, Rimbaud. Que depuis Rimbaud, aucun poite en France
n'a invent^ rien de fondamental. Y avait des modifications interessantes,
293
Rapallo
des presque-inventions, des applications. (Voir Instigations ou mon
numlro de Little Review sur Pontes Franjais.)
Je crois que Cocteau, que vous glorifiez comme metteur-en-sc£ne et
nlgligez comme fort bon pofcte mineur, a fait quelque chose pour lib&er
la langue fr. des ses manchettes (JPoisies 1920). C'est pour la langue
franjaise — parfaitement inutile pour nous autres qui ^crivons en am&icain
— veut dire: invention d'utilit£ locale.
Peut-Strevous aurez un instrument de pensee. Si vous vous proposez la
question.
Est-ce-que il existe une langue anglaise pourexprimerleslignes de Rim-
baud? Je ne dis pas un traducteur capable de le faire, mais est-ce-que cette
langue existe? (comme moyen) — et depuis quand?
De cette balance, vous devez trouver les relations justes — au moins du
c6t£ technique.
Si vous voulez, vous pouvez m'envoyer votre etude avant de Timprimer
et alors je pourrais indiquer les differences de vue, ou les erreurs (si y en
aurait) de fait, de chronologie mineure, etc.
P.S. Je crois que ma s£v£rit£ sert mieux la reputation de la lit. fr. que tees
Ipanchements des francophiles ou parasites qui cherchent a faire passer les
mauvais pontes fr. au premier rang. Qu'on batit une gloire plus sure, en
voulant presenter les auteurs solides (meme si de nombre restreint, qu'en
y ajoutant les flaques, les gonfles, etc.)
Je crois que Eliot, dont les premieres poesies ont montre influence de
Laforgue, a moins de respect pour Laf. que le respect que j'ai pour Laf.
Gautier j'ai etudie et je le r6v&re. Ce que vous prenez pour influence de
Corbtere est probablement influence directe de Villon.
„ de Tailhade, superficielle.
„ „ Jammes !! j'esp&requenon.
Quant aux sonnets? Catulle, Villon, Guido Cavalcanti, des Grecs qui
n'etaient pas Pindar, des Chinois.
Und iiberhaupt ich stamm aus Browning. Pourquoi nier son p&re?
Symbole ? ? Je n'ai jamais lu ' les id£es des symbolistes * sur ce sujet.
Dans ma jeunesse j'avais peut-etre quelqu'id^e rejue du moyen 4ge.
Dante, St. Victor, dieu sait qui, des modifications via Yeats (ce dernier
plein de symbolisme miconnu — via Boite, symbolisme frangais, etc)
mais je ne sais pas dlnuder les traces.
Je ne me rappelle rien de Gourmont au sujet de 'symbole/
Ma riformex
1. Browning — d£nu£ des paroles superflues
a. Flaubert — mot juste, presentation ou constatation
294
1928— aetat 42
Riforme m^trique plus profonde — date de 1905 on commence avant de
connaltre Fr. modernes.
J'ai 'lanc£' les Imagistes (anthologie Des Imagistes; mais on doit me
dissocier de la decadence des Imagistes, qui commence avec leurs antho-
logies post&ieures (mSme la premiere de ces anthologies)).
Mais 'voui': Yidie de l'image doit 'quelquechose' aux symbolistes
fran9ais via T. E. Hulme, via Yeats<Symons<Mallarm£. Comme le pain
doit quelquechose au vanneur de bl£, etc.
Tant d'op£rations intermddiaires.
Mais aussi k Catulle (pas Mendfe) — Q. V. Catullus — qui avait une con-
ception fort nette il ya plusieurs mille ans.
Mais ma connaissance des pontes fr. mod. et ma propagande pour ces
pontes en Am£rique (1912-17-23) venait en sens general apres Pinception
de rimagisme k Londres (1908-13-14).
Je crois que Tinfluence soit de Laforgue (par Eliot) soit de Maupassant
sur l'Am&ique est souvent assez de 2me, 3me, 1 5 me main.
232: To H. L. Mencken
Rapalbj 3 September
Respected Mencken: Thanks fr. yr. brotherly words. You 'advocate' the
severance of Maryland, but do I not set example by action? At any rate the
State of Pound did very largely sever 20 years ago. It is the only state in
which I have any preponderant authority or even influence. My weight
with Vare wd. be less than a milligram. And with the Borah of my native
mountainy fastnesses ! ! ! Even my mild arguments with natives still there
resident have failed to rouse up an assassin.
I spose my murkn correspondents reveal to me things they wdnt. tell to
the local Y.M.C.A. sees, or to the alderman of their villages, i.e., that I am
prob. as well informed as to the events in our vaterland as I wd. be if in
residence there.
I dunno wot I cd. shoot on publicke questions, more'n what you do
yourself. I believe I have introduced the word bureaucrat into the nashunul
langwidge. At least an editor I met in Vienner hadn't heard of there being
any govt officials until I told him. Yaas, I told him there wuz. He said they
caused no discontent in his N. Y. circle.
I'm puffickly willing to fire depth-charge at any time if anyone wants to
read the sound of my syllables. Mr. Villard still thinks Pm a lily-carrying
295
Rapallo
aeeesthete with green hair and blue whiskers. He only let me in on Sundays
and holidays. I do what I can to keep the Bill of Rights waving above the
Paris office of the Chicago Trib. (heaven knows what they print on the
Lake front).
I go for days, at times even weeks (not probably very plural) without
likker; but shd. hate to feel I had to square the cop or the local J.P. every
time I wanted to buy a box of Lowney's chocolates or have a little rosso
with my spaghetti.
Besides all this bloody business must cut into one's time. Hell ! ! ! ! !
States Rights, surtunly, sah. But if not them, at least our own.
233: To James Vogel
Rapallo >, 21 November
My dear Vogel: Were any of the things mentioned in yrs. of 8th and 9th
inst. otherwise, I shd. not have bothered to give yr. name to Zuk.
The science of groups is as follows: at the start you must find the 10%
of matters that you agree on and the 10% plus value in each other's work.
You ' all ' presumably want some sort of intelligent life not dependent on
cash, and salesmanship.
Take our groups in London. The group of 1909 has disappeared with-
out the world being much the wiser. Perhaps a first group can only pre-
pare way for a group that will break through.
The one or two determined characters will pass thru 1st to 2nd or third
groups.
I mistrust . . . .n, not from fault of heart, but that he is sterile. All his
groups have had sterilizing effect on themselves. A critical ideal. No use
starting to crit. each other at start. Anyhow it requires more crit. faculty to
discover the hidden 10% positive, than to fuss about 90% obvious imper-
fection. You talk about style, and mistrusting lit. socs. etc. Nacherly. Mis-
trust people who fuss about paint and finish before they consider girders
and structure.
Recently reed, book from Milan with dedicace: from Scheiwiller,
employee, publisher and messenger boy. He at least hasn't waited to make
his pile, he is a clerk in Hoepli's, but he is also publisher of * Chirico,
Prampolini, and I don't know who else.'
Also if you yell loud enough, if you get Mrs. S to weep loud
enough over copyright infamy, you can have yr. books printed here. Or
296
1928— aetat 43
cave in the U.S. printing prices. You have got to damn and dynamite the
American censorship and customs interference. It all hangs together. As for
rich fat ladies, don't try their intelligence. Tell 'em the arts are being
murdered by copyright infamy, printing costs, customs barriers, copy-
right lack of law. If they try to act and fail, the sheckels may flow. In any
case effort wd. educate 'em.
Money won't do a damn thing in the arts by itself It can't. The essential
is inside the artist. Don't fergit diat. He really has the whip hand.
As you say, the murkn intelligentsia is soft. It is not organized, and
hasn't the ghost of a suspicion of how much power (latent) it has.
However, I ought not to have to tell 'em the first, second, third, fourth
and fifth times. Someone on the spot ought to start telling 'em, and when
they get to wavering point, let me come in as authority or reserve troops.
It will economize some energy if what I write to you can be passed on to
Zuk. etc I oughtn't to have to write the same thing twice when once wd.
serve.
I have never heard of yr. Mrs. S. but if she is a banker's wife it wd. prob.
be hopeless to tell her anything about literature, i.e. to educate her to know
good from bad. These marginal people shd. be put to fighting general con-
ditions: the gen. conditions are: copyright, custom, art. 21 1 of Penal Code,
and cost of printing.
The first three to be fought openly. The third to be attacked via subsi-
dized plant. I.e., one that needn't pay rent, that hasn't sunk capital in its
machinery, that is manned at least in part by volunteer staff, or amateur
staff, or people who write and can take some of their exercise on working
the press. They won't be scabbing the printers, as they wd. be doing work
not done by printers, i.e. not taking work from them.
The worse a book is the more it ought to cost to print.
Don't worry about some 2nd rate bloke getting praised. What if I had
sat down and wept over the booms of Abercrumbie and Fuggis ! !
Ole Hen Ford has seen several points that wd. be useful in la vie
litt&aire. I.e., anteriority of production to blurb.
There were 16 millions that did not elect Hoover. It takes about 600
people to make a civilization. There were umpteen billions of unbreached
barbarians in the north woods when Athens etc. . . .
If the 243 Americans who ever heard of civilization wd. quit crabbing
each other and organize, it wd. be a start. To hell with what somebody else
isn't doing.
As Yeats has said: ' Fortunately they don't know we are here, otherwise
they wd. abolish us all.'
Re p. 2 yrs. Nov. 9.
197
Rapallo
What a good man gets from another man's work is: precisely the know-
ledge that the other man has done a job, and that he, the first man, need not
do that same job or an imitation of it, but is free to do his own job.
The utility of education or of knowing the subject is mainly to know
what one needn't bother to do. The pt. from which one can start to do one's
own bloody bizniz.
The ones with nothing to say get scared, are afraid to recognize the
qualities of others for fear there won't be a place on the bandwagon for
themselves, etc. No good work ever knocked out any other good
work. It is the pikers who get knocked off and who get uneasy when a
good job is done. Etc.
Point of group is precisely to have somewhere to go when you don't
want to be bothered about salesmanship. (Paradox? ? No.)
When you get five men who trust each other you are a long way to a
start. If your stuff won't hold the interest of the other four or of someone
in the four, it may not be ready to print.
Also at 24?? I came thru, if you like, at 23, but I had already known
what I was at, for eight years.
Etc. Got a pile of work on my head.
234: To James Joyce
Rapallo, 23 December
Dear James: With respected greetings of the alledgedly happy but in
reality rather frigid season.
As a philological note: The Yeats alledges that in time past (80 or 90
years ago) thou madest some traductions of the plays of G. Hauptmann.
2ndly that these cd. not be used at the Abbey because it was then con-
stitooted or red taped to do nowt but 100% green or Erse plays.
If these juvenile indiscretions still exist the time may now have come to
cash in on 'em.
The noble Gerhardt (Hauptmann) is struggling both with Ulysses (im
Deutsch) and with the germanly traduced works of Wm. He sez Ulysses in
choimun is like looking at a coin through his microscope, can't see it cause
it's aggrandized to such etc. • . .
Seems quite as likely that it was Grillparzer or Ibsen that you'd
traduced, but you might lemme have the reel dope on the sichoo-
atshun.
298
1928— aetat 43
235: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo y 30 December
Dear Harriet: Carnevali's minimum expenses are 40 dollars a month. His
assets (including your 5) are 1 5 a month. McAlmon has paid his bills for, I
think, four years, but can not continue.
I am trying to get something from the Authors' League ,
and hope you will back me up. They can only give sporadic grants; not
allowances.
The case is so clear that I think someone like Mrs. Moody, etc., on basis
of charity ought to be put onto it.
As he never stops shaking, save immediately after his medicine, he
obviously can not do any great amount of work. I don't know how much
longer he can last. They told me in Bologna three years ago that the
disease is incurable. With America reeking with money, some one ought
to be found to deal with the matter.
More cheering news items are that Aldington seems to have awakened
from his slumbers. I may be sending you something of his, before long.
Or he may be induced to take direct action, mdly, there is a new chap
called T. McGreevy whose work Yeats admires. I think W.B.Y. intends
giving him an introduction to you. I have myself seen a good poem by him
in an Irish anthology.
299
1929
236: To James Vogel
Rapalhy 23 January
Dear Vogel: Yr. painfully evangelical epistle reed. If you are looking for
people who agree with you ! ! ! ! How the hell many points of agreement do
you suppose there were between Joyce, W. Lewis, Eliot and yrs. truly in
1917; or between Gaudier and Lewis in 191 3; or between me and Yeats,
etc.?
If you agree that there ought to be decent writing, something expressing
the man's ideas, not prune juice to suit the pub. taste or your taste, you will
have got as far as any ' circle ' or ' world ' ever has.
If another man has ideas of any kind (not borrowed cliches) that irritate
you enough to make you think or take out your own ideas and look at 'em,
that is all one can expect.
Not that you or anyone else can work beside a chap that gives you the
creeps.
If it is any use, I slid, be inclined not to make an effort to bring out
another Xile until one has seen whether Blues can do the job. Or do you
consider this excessive on my part?
I don't see that there is room or need for two mags doing experimental
stuff ... at present moment. If Blues can bring out a good wad of Joe
Gould it seems to me it wd. about cover the ground.
The other 'find' was Howard Weeks; it don't show in Xile. His stuff
looked as if it wd. be such a damn sight better in a few months, during
which time he died.
Blues had better take on McAlmon. Haven't seen anything new of
Rodker's up to level of Adolphe. Besides it is not your job to print foreign
authors. That can be done here.
I personally don't want to write any prose for the next year or two or
three. If you get Bill Wms., McAlmon, Joe Gould and the authors you've
got, there ought to be enough solid core to carry the thing.
Cummings and Hemingway and Callaghan are all doing the dollar a
word or something of that sort.
Seems to me a chance for the best thing since The Little Review and cer-
300
1929 — aetat 43
tainly the best thing done in America without European help. McA. is in
Europe but the only reason he isn't printed in the U.S. is that he is so gol
darned American they can't stand it.
Gould, I believe, ought to be paid. I believe Blues has a little money in
the chest? There are times when the difference between 5 dollars and zero
is all the difference. — / — /
237: To Charles Henri Ford
Rapallo 9 1 February
Dear C.H.F.: Every generation or group must write its own literary pro-
gram. The way to do it is by circular letter to your ten chief allies. Find out
the two or three points you agree on (if any) and issue them as program.
If you merely want to endorse something in my original Imagist manifesto
or the accompanying 'Don'ts' or in my How to Read that has just ap-
peared in the N. Y. Herald ' Books,' simply say so. Or list the revered and
unreverend authors you approve or disapprove of.
Re my ' Program' 1 enclosed: A man's opinions are his own affair. When
writing a poem he shd. think only of doing a good job. But a magazine is a
public matter. It is there as mediator between the writer and the public. A
magazine shd. think of the welfare of literature as a whole and of condi-
tions in which it is possible to produce it. I shd. like you to print my
'Program.' Note that it is civic not political. Not a question of messing
into politics but of the writers or intelligentsia raising hell all day and every
day about abuses that interfere with their existence as writers and that
represent an oppression of literature by the stinking sons-of-bitches who
rot the country.
As to magazine policy: Most 'young' magazines play ostrich. They
neither recognize the outer world nor do they keep an eye on contem-
porary affairs of strictly literary nature.
1 Program 1929
1. Government for utility only.
2. Article 21 1 of the Penal Code to be amended by the 12 words: This statute
does not apply to works of literary and scientific merit.
3. Vestal's bill or some other decent and civilized copyright act to be passed.
Footnote: instead of everybody's going to New York, ten or a dozen bright lads
ought to look in on the national capital. We need several novels in the vein of
Hemingway's The Torrents of Spring dealing not with helpless rural morons but
with ' our rulers ' and the ' representatives of the people \
301
Rapallo
You shd. look at all the other poetry reviews and attack idiocy when it
appears in them. The simplest and briefest form of attack is by a sottisier.
As has been done by Mercure de France, New Age, Egoist and Am. Mer-
cury. The only thing is that instead of Mencken's 'Americana' you shd.
run sottisier confined to literary criticism. It is no longer my place to point
out the idiocies that appear in Poetry, for example. The older boy shd. not
stick pins into the younger. It is courageous of the young to stick pins into
the pompous.
Make your sottisier from Poetry and the main literary reviews, Sunday
supplements, etc.
These sottisiers are often the first parts of a live mag that people read.
Let everyone collect 'em.
As you don't live in same town with yr. star contribs, you can not have
fortnightly meeting and rag each other. Best substitute is to use circular
letters. For example write something (or use this note of mine), add your
comments, send it on to Vogel, have him show it to Spector, and then send
it to Bill Wms. each adding his blasts and blesses or comment of whatever-
damn natr. Etc. When it has gone the rounds, you can send it back here.
I don't see any Philadelphia group listed in yr. announcement. You
might drop a line to Frank Audenbrand, c/o my father.
You shd. look into Art. 21 1 and the copyright mess. If you don't want
to attend to that part of the mag, get Vogel or Spector or some of the
huskier and more publicke minded members to do the blasting.
There is no sense in living in a country covered with * — . It
distracts the mind from more interesting matters. Simplest method, dis-
covered by the Romans or some earlier people, is to dig a good sewer at
the start; and then turn you attention to architecture. — / — /
238: To the Alumni Secretary of the
University of Pennsylvania
Rapallo, 20 April
Sir: Your circular letter of April 8 is probably excusable as a circular letter.
If it were a personal letter I shd. be obliged to correct it.
Any news that the grad. school or any other 'arts' segment of the U. of
P. had started to take an interest in civilization or 'the advancement of
knowledge' or any other matter of interest wd. be of interest.
The matter of keeping up one more otiose institution in a retrograde
3°*
192.9— aetat 44
country 9eems to me to be the affair of those still bamboozled by mendi-
cancy, rhetoric, and circular letters.
In other words what the hell is the grad. school doing and what the
hell does it think it is there for and when the hell did it do anything but
try to perpetuate the routine and stupidity that it was already perpetuating
in 1873?
P.S. All the U. of P. or your god damn college or any other god damn
American college does or will do for a man of letters is to ask him to go
away without breaking the silence.
239: To John Scheiwiller
Rapalby 26 November
Dear Scheiwiller: The trouble is that 1 have never seen any of Modig-
liani's work. He died in Paris while I was living in London. I know of his
position and I know the work by reproduction, and I know how good
artists respected him; but my respect for artistic criticism as such prevents
me from having or printing opinions on what I don't know.
I don't know what I can say.
'Premature death of Modigliani removed a definite, valuable and emo-
tive force from the contemporary art world.'
If that is any use to you. ?
240: To William Carlos Williams
Rapalloy 2 December
And now to speak of something conskruktive: Since my progenitors cum
over here, I don't see any god damn American magazines cos nobody
sends 'em. And\ shd. like to see the advertisement of one of those latest
smallest lightest printing presses again. The kind advertised fer bizniz
houses: € Do your own printing.'
Old fashioned 'and press for marrvelous fine printing is no use az far as
I'm concerned. To damn much work, technical skill, etc.
Damn it, I oughtn't to have to bother with the thing at all; but the rest
of the world is so lousy lazy that I may as well look into the matter. Self-
303
Rapallo
inking, self-feeding, etc Something that wd. give a decent imprint (say as
good as Exile or die French edtn. of my Antheil). Roller cylinder, of
course. I.e., main want is to know if there is anything that can be worked
with little enough bother to make it possible. Shd. also want to see a sample
of work actually done by one of the b ... y things. Couldn't cost too much
as it wd. certainly be idle most of the time; and no chance of 'merchanting'
the products in any conceivable case. Some general idea of shipping costs
etc. And whether agency exists in Europe or Italy wd. help, etc.
Easiest thing for you wd. be to sight one of the ads. and drop note to the
makers telling 'em to send me full an bloated particulars.
Drawback mainly the feeling that if I buy the damn thing there will for
eight years be nothing to print on it.
241: To Agnes Bedford
Rapalloy December
I have done a great deal of work of plodding keraktur. If the G(uido)
C(avalcanti) ever gets out of press, it should be a ' standard woik,' etc.
Only great emptiness can produce profound scholarship. Und so weiter.
J<*4
193°
242: To William Carlos Williams
Rapallo, 16 January
Dear WillYam: Zuk tells me that Reznikof has a printin press. In any
kuntry but Murka this wd. solve a lot of problems.
2. Untermeyer (and wife) is (are) here. He seems a man of good will and
without hamstringing prejudice. Mrs. U. let off some sentiments the other
evenin that might have fell from yr. own hnrd. lips. In fact I believe they
in a dif. form have. I gather McA. handed him some rough stuff on first
meetin, but he don't bear no mangy.
Nancy (Cunard) has agreed to print Zuk's 'The.' Also wants some-
thing of yours, as I indicated when writin to Z. so'z to save a week's time.
In return for which virchoos aks peeraps you can shoulder the follerin.
I invented the Poetry Clan. 1 Harriet and Co. hung crfipe until they
found it wd. work. I have never asked 'em anything and they have never
asked my advice. Have you any infloonz with 'em?
It so happens that a chap named Macleod (not Fiona) has writ a good
poem 70 pages long, i.e., too long fer Nancy and too long to print in
Criterion or any review. I want the bloody Clan to do it. Naturally they'll
have to see the ms., etc., but I have no reason to spose that any of their
anonymous (god damn it, why anonymous?) committee will be able to see
why it is good.
Have yeow any snug-gestions ?
As fer yr. guesses re Zuk and Mac: Z seems to be lookin fer more
punishment.
243: To E. E. Cummings
Rapallo y 17 February
Dear Cummings: Van Hecke is asking me to help him make up an
American number of Variitis. I don't know whether you know the
1 See Letter No. 223.
U 3°$
Rapallo
review. It has weak numbers; but four or five together keep up a more
lively average with less chapelle than anything else I see hereabouts. He
seems to take my word for certain lit. values.
I am expecting a set of yr. books that I ordered some weeks ago. I hope
(praps vain optimism) to find an intelligent translator. In the meantime, I
want your photo and any suggestions you have to offer re what bits of yr.
work you would prefer to have translated into French; i.e., is there any-
thing you think more representative than anything else or wd. prefer to
see transd. before anything else? Or in^dit that won't pass censor in N.Y.
and that needs European imprint (mag is pubd. Bruxelles) ?
You might mention any one (or thing) you think ought to go in and
whom or which I am likely to omit and* bibliography of yr. woiks.
Photos illustrating the number to be mainly machinery, etc., plus the
noble and rep. viri murkhani. Of course, if you have any really funny
photos representing the habits of the American peepul, they cd. be used
with advantage. I shd. like the number to be as good as my French number
of The Lit. Rev. (1918), but the photos need not maintain the level of high
seriousness demanded by our late friend The Dial.
Van H. has already printed photos of Voronoff operation, the streets of
Marseilles, etc. Bandagistes' windows also a favorite subject.
If you have a photo of a Cigar Store Indian or can get one, it wd. be
deeply appreciated. Our autocthonous sculpture is comparatively un-
known in Yourup, though I suspect the c. (or segar) s.i. was possibly of
Brit, or colonial origin. Van H. has got a lot of Berenice (Abbott )'s photos
of N.Y. I don't know just what. Still he hasn't mentioned an Indian and
B's prob. too young to remember 'em.
244: To E. E. Cummings
Rapallo, 25 March
Yr Eimminence: One piece nicotine refined woodlady, 2 views, reed. Re
'regress': priority claimed. Expressed thanks g& Sacher Zorach. Ever a
pleasure to have something to decipher that airit dear Jim or oedipus
Gertie. Bibliography duly registered. Competition of Soviet number
VariitUs demanding all poss. pathriotic zeal. Mr. Rus. Wright appre-
ciated.
HELLass have Host the Uovelly pixture (helas only nzp cut) of nat.
com. of largeladies visiting blanchhouse.
306
i93°— aetat 44
Wot's the Belgium for 'Yale?*
Tears of nostalgi inwit welling at name of Patchin. Youth returns aged
thorax. Cd. use yet again more seegar Injuns. N.Y. Herald Paris has beat
us on Coolidge: one of Cal. with parrot that in onconscious humour
defies concurrence. Besides one might find something of more topical
interest.
P.S. Does a venerable figure called Dahler still live at No. 7 Pat. PL?
245: To Harriet Monroe
Rapalhy 24 October
Cheers, my dear Harriet, CheeUHHS ! ! ! In a few days it wd. have been a
birfday present.
And now proceeding in order. No, I did not mean Norman Macleod
when I wrote J.G. meaning Joseph Gordon (purrrnounced I prezoom
Garrrdun) Macleod (perrnounced Mclwd) whose The Ecliptic has just
been pubd. in vol. by Faber and Faber of Lunnon.
Secondly as you rashly ask for further hint. Did I or did I not suggest
tempering Zukofsky with McKenzie? Zuk to provide the good sense and
McKenzie the conviction of the value of the new group. I dunno what can
be done now to make up for that bit of motive power. I may have said c or'
instead of 'and/
Anyhow I shall urge Zuk to take the March or May in order to have
time to get the most dynamite into it.
As to N' Yok, you know that I have always played Chicago (or any
western township against N.Y. whenever I cd. get standing room west of
the Alleghenies. The trouble is that they won't stay west of the Alleg-
henies. Margaret, Covici, Putnam, etc Morada is my last stab at this
and before I can get an answer they are in Munich (having excema and
asking my advice about health resorts . . . vivaHHH the he-man of the
wilds ! !). I got a ten gallon hat last week and still got more hair on meh
chest than any of 'em, me, the etiolated European ! !
By the way met a frien* of yours in Rrome. You might get her to
release another ten bucks a month for the lily-souled Emanuel. Pleasant
woman, Mc something.
Waal, waal, my deah Harriet, I sho iz glad you let these young scrubs
have the show to their selves, an ah does hope they dust out your office.
My only fear is that Mr. Zukofsky will be just too Goddam prewdent.
307
Rapallo
No, I haven't seen dear Margaret's outburst. When she and Jane got to
sequestering my mss. on the ground that what I had writ wd. do me 'so
much harm in America/ 1 sought younger companions.
It ain't my idea of Pegasus, it's Mr. Gill's. Mebbe Pegasus looks like that
in England. I'd rather have one from Kentucky even if he hadn't wings
and wisp of spinach for a tail. I never did think much of Mr. Gill or of
Henglish Hawt anyway. (Wyndham Lewis's dad was a West Pointer of
Murkn nashunality, so he ain't under the Bris'h nachunul coise.) That
Damn hoss wd. be perfectly at home on the Georgian anthology. How-
ever, there he is, you gotter keep him for a year. He ain't 'et fer some time
and he is powerful curious about that carrot (no room fer carrot on the
cover).
If you'd read Pisanello's letter (vide Canto XXVI) and then look at
some Pisanello medals or frescoes you wd. be able to work out my opinion
of Mr. Gill on the subjekkof hosses.
246: To William Carlos Williams
Rapallo, 22 November
Deer Willyum the Wumpus: How badly does Zuk want to git to Yourup?
And how badly ought he?
Until his last letter (in which the question is not mentioned) I had held
the view that he ought to git some sort of root in N.Y. before wandering.
And I have alius held that sometime somehow god damn etc. something
ought to git started on the bloody spot (especially as ole Europe ain't
what she wuz).
However, if it merely means killing off yet another generation. . . .
Secondly if m yr. judgment he ought to have a breathing spell, can we
in any way manage it? Has he any resources (fiscal)? Question of whether
it wd. weaken his fibre etc. to be helped, whether to add yet another to an
unpaid perfession in which even the old stagers are havin hell's own
helluva to pay for their beer and sandwiches . . . etc. . . .
What sort of degradation is he willing to undergo?
Etc. First question is whether you think it wd. be a good thing for him
to be exported temporarily, or if he once gets his nose out whether he
cd. ever stand repatriation ? ? ? ? ? ? Etc. etc.
God damn it, who are the just men in yr. transpontine sodom enny-
how????
308
1931
247: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, January
Dear Harriet: Am forwarding yrs. to Yeats.
Re yrs. in Eng. Journal: you have never answered a straight question re
my Propertius: Did either you or Hale suppose that my reference to
Wordsworth in my Homage was a mistranslation from the Latin?
Hale was a god damn fool, I don't know whether that demands 'for-
giveness' or not. At any rate I leave both vendetta and pardon to the
forces of nature. I was not in the habit of answering criticisms of my own
wort The irritation was caused by its being impossible to conduct an
argument on the basis of Hale's being fool enough to have based his crit.
on the whole poem as only a fragment of it had been printed.
As to 'whole' numbers. If it was possible for Neihardt it was 'possible,'
however antipathetic it may have been to you personally, to have extended
the same amt. of space to 'other writers.'
Hale's one 'discovery of error' reduces itself to the passage about the
aqueduct which he got not from his own intelligence or from a knowledge
of Latin but from using an annotated edtn.
If you think the trade gains by putting poetic quality below pedantry or
even below scholastic distinction, this is the one case in 18 years in which
you have ever shown signs of that attitude.
There is an unimportant error or vagueness in yr. remarks re my
fatigue. Not weariness but indignation (beginning with the 2nd number)
and overcome time after time, divorced me from Poetry. No elephant has
my patience.
The Lit. Rev. ejected me. BLAST ceased through no act of mine. The
Dial was always hell, or nearly always, endured on the principle 'faim
saillir le loup du bois.'
Exile was undertaken to print what no other mag. wd. print. As soon as
there were other mags in existence that cd. carry on I desisted.
As for the joke about when various revs, were useful: All right. Make out
another list of what those reviews and any other li'l reviews published
when they were trying to prove me an imbecile.
309
Rapallo
You've got the spectacle of the Georgians in Britain, Stork and heaven
knows wottell ... in U.S.A. Cf. Little Review itself under Ficke's effulgent
aegis.
Re Zuk: gord knows wot he has done to yr. respected pubctn. At least
it will be a different point of view. Let us hope a younger pt. v. than mine.
You might also concede the constructive value of my kicking about
mutilations. Proper tius and Mauberley were cut, but on the strength of my
howling to high heaven that this was an outrage, Eliot's Waste Land was
printed whole. In which action I also participated. Dragging my own
corpse by the heels to arouse the blasted spectators.
248: To the Editor of the English Journal
Rapallo , 24 January
Sir: It is fatiguing to argue about one's own work but Miss Monroe's per-
sistent errors seem to demand a reply.
1. Four sections of a poem written in 12 sections do not constitute the
whole poem.
2. My Homage to Sextus Proper tius is not a translation of Propertius.
3. 1 am unable to imagine a depth of stupidity so great as to lead either
Miss Monroe or the late Hale into believing that I supposed I had found an
allusion to Wordsworth or a parody of Yeats in Propertius.
4. 1 did not at the time reply to Hale because I could not assume that he
had seen the entire poem.
5. Hale's 'criticism' displayed not only ignorance of Latin but ignor-
ance of English.
6. If Miss Monroe is unable to discover proof of Hale's ignorance I will
(if any interest be now supposed to inhere in the subject) on receipt of a
copy of Hale's 'criticism' indicate his errors. Miss Monroe appears to pre-
serve the superstition that a man is learned, or, me hercule, infallible because
hfi is a professor.
P.S. As Miss Monroe has never yet discovered what the aforementioned
poem is, I may perhaps avoid charges of further mystification and wilful
obscurity by saying that it presents certain emotions as vital to me in 1 917,
faced with the infinite and ineffable imbecility of the British Empire, as
they were to Propertius some centuries earlier, when faced with the infinite
and ineffable imbecility of the Roman Empire. These emotions are defined
largely, but not entirely, in Propertius* own terms. If the reader does not
find relation to life defined in the poem, he may conclude that I have been
unsuccessful in my endeavour. I certainly omitted no means of definition
310
1931— aetat 45
that I saw open to me, including shortenings, cross cuts, implications
derivable from other writings of Propertius, as for example the 'Ride to
Lanuvium' from which I have taken a colour or tone but no direct or
entire expression.
249: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 27 March
Dear H.M.: Agree that transition was mainly slop, but the review was
useful.
As to Feb. Poetry. . . . The point is that although most of the contents
was average, the mode of presentation was good editing. The zoning of
different states of mind, so that one can see what they are, is good editing.
This gang is not the same mess as the Neihardt stuff you used to in-
clude. Vide infra.
Zuk's own poem is part of a whole poem and therefore loses 9/ioths of
its intelligibility, cut off as a fragment.
But there has been a development in American verse during 20 years;
and the messy britons have not kept up with it.
Have done a brief note on Feb. Poetry for Putnam's New Rev.
An editor is not there to represent him- or herself save as a part of the
period. Different facets shd. be presented with as much separation as pos-
sible, so as to show what they are, not merely partly boiled legumes in the
soup. Only a small part of any epoch or decade survives. Service of Feb.
number perhaps not so much re what is to survive of present infants as in
strong indication of what will not survive from former mediocrity and
faintly-above-medioc. A pruning of the tree.
There always is ' mighty little ' being done.
If you want to insult yourself by taking transition as criterion of com-
parison, do so: but I didn't. Neither do I see why a magazine shd. stop
with the stoppage of its initial editor.
I don't in the least mind opposition. I regard it as being there to be
eliminated. I.e., resistance to develop the force of action. Very useful in lit.
discussion as it gives opportunity to elucidate fully points left obscure
(unconsciously) by the first expressor.
But anybody being a friend of anybody has nothing to do with literary
criticism. I hope to maintain at least that point, even if no sonzofbitches
ever come to my funeral and if no stinking Judge Thayer 1 of Massachusetts
ever places wreaths on my unknown tomb.
1 Presiding judge during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.
311
Rapallo
Re Bunting: there aren't a whole plateful of Eng. extremists. B's in
correspondence with J. G. Macleod. I personally do not share the Auden
craze, it isn't as much as a craze anyhow; it is merely that Auden is so large
a part of what little they've got. Mutatis mutandis, another J. E. Flecker, I
mean about that general mule-power.
Re yr. last page. If you had ever told me you repented of Neihardt I wd.
have looked up some other more recent instance (even though by such
doing I might have obscured my general idea).
My idea of Brit, number was that it shd. give 'em the best show pos-
sible, but that it was bound to be American chauvinism, because the best
Brit, show wd. be very much inferior to Zuk's number.
Good editing, as I see it, means the most effective presentation of the
best of whatever is on hand.
An English number ought to show Eng. different from America, but no
longer, as in 1892, better in re the art of poesy.
Obviously in the last analysis the grade of any period depends on one,
two or a few of the best writers. The Greek anthology is not a contradic-
tion; it does not represent the mediocrity of one decade but the florilegium
of a long series of decades.
It is time there was another such report on France as I made in 19 18 in
Little Rev.
In 191 1 France led. I doubt if she does today. But that question does not
take ref. to two hundred writers. It is a question of the state of awareness
of Ford, Joyce, Eliot, Bill Wms., E.P. to Gide, Claudel, smut nut etc.
Cocteau, Aragon, Peret.
Italy gets into internat. locale by reason of Tozzi (prose).
Re opposition: if one aims at 100%, the opposition is there either to
affect one, i.e. 9 rectify one's direction or to be rectified by one's direction.
Difficulty generally is to get any opposition that will define a position at
all: or stick to a point of discussion until, between the disputants, one gets
the right answer (in cases where there is one).
Re Poetry stopping: Having performed the great feat of manipulating
the god damned borzoi into spending a little money on the best poetry at
yr. disposal (given yr. lights) it wd. be a crime to plug the hole. You ought
to leave as durable and continuing a monument as possible to the fact that
you extracted from among the porkpackers a few less constipated and
made them pay money for the upkeep of poesy. The five just men in
Sodom were as nothing by comparison. I forget; I dare say they weren't to
be found, and the angels' morals had to be kept in the family.
I don't care how they are made to do it. If love availeth not, tell 'em all
the young writers will go communist the moment they stop. That not so
31a
1931— aetat 45
far out, anyhow. Bourgeois Htcherchoor is pretty well on the blink. Am a
democrat myself. . . but one must observe the general current of things.
When it comes to the yearn after vanishing kulchuh I suspect that Mr.
McAlmon's feelings toward Mr. Farrell (who writes of American low life)
are almost as H. J.'s might have been toward Mr. McA. — / — /
P.S. Yet again: say the Feb. number doesn't 'record a triumph' for that
group. Get some other damn group and see what it can do. What about
the neo-Elinor-Wylites? Have they got any further than the neo-Vance-
Cheneyites of 1 904 ?
Zone the barstuds.
Or the neo-hogbutchererbigdriftites? They all gone Rootabaga?
Tyler prob. has something. C. H. Ford prob. not.
You may have kept at it more persistently than Exile: but what about
Exile's editor? What earthly dif. does it make whether Exile appears
separately or in the pages of some other review. The next time there is no
Lit. Rev., Dial, BLAST, H{ound) and H{orn), Symposium or other re-
view to print something I think needs printing you may have the sweet
torture of seeing a No. 5.
Anyhow the damn porkpackers ought to pay my rent. Expect me to be
the leading Xponent, patron of arts, committee of information. Wotter-
hell !!!!!! Tell your damn guarantors I consider 'em as holy lights amid a
great flock of cattle (millionaire illiterates, dumb and speechless tribes of
unconscious pawnbrokers).
The hayseed walked across the road at night
He said to his old woman, Now say, I say
Maggie, don't yew think it's about time I started hoeing?
What about the ole bucolic school? Have they got any agricultural
epigons?
Here, I'm exceeding myself.
P.P.S. fenny rate, whooz down-hearted?
250: To Lincoln Kirstein
Rapallo, (?May)
DearL.K.:— /— /
Costa piii della Divina Commedia
1. In reply to your earlier letter. Your statement about live types etc.
amounts to saying that there is good low life in America. There is good
313
Rapallo
low life anywhere. The lower it is the less it is national and the less it
reflects any credit or interest on the particular place in which it exists.
I can only repeat my malediction: God eternally damblast a country
that spends billions interfering with peoples' diet and that can not support
a single printing press which will print stuff that people like me want to
read, Le., regardless of immediate fiscal profit.
The endowments are sabotaged. Even when some vague and good-
natured millionaire 'founds' something with allegedly cultural or creative
intent, the endowment is handed over to academic eminences who are as
incapable of picking a first class painter or writer as I shd. be of making a
sound report on a copper mine. The one thing they are sure to hate is the
germ of original capacity. They will go on backing the Howells, the
Tarkingtons and the W. Churchills to the end of their ignominious
history.
My heading was found in the local pharmacy. I asked for a certain brand
of excellent American toilet paper and the pharmacien replied with this
epitaph on Anglo-Saxon civilization: '£ essagerata. Costa piu della
Divina Commedia. 9 Yes, he wd. sell it to me, but really it cost too much.
It cost more than the Divina Commedia.
Our race still maintains this proportion in estimate. It is the reversal of
the old epigram about hyacinths.
2. Re style in America: Yes. And it is worth irritating people and stick-
ing to that somewhat Toryish (tho' not fundamentally Tory) position
however unpopular.
But it is dangerous internally and ex — . Danger of Concord school
omitting to notice Whitman. Historically, people in rough environment,
if they have any sensibility or perception, want 'culture an' refinement.'
Whitman embodying nearly everything one disliked, etc. Failure to see the
wood for the trees.
Secondly or thirdly: Danger of confusing your (for example) lyric im-
pulse and yr. editorial function. As lyricist you can want (and shd. want)
whatever you damn please. Editorial function something very different.
In that function one has to (at least) observe, admit the capacities of people
who like what one does not like.
Life wd. have been (in my case) much less interesting if I had waited till
Joyce, Lewis, Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, etc. complied with what my taste
was in 1908.
O hell, how shall I put it. My son, elucidate thine own bloody damn
point of view by its contrast to others, not by trying to make the others
conform.
AH right. You want a style out of America. Stick at it. But when it
1931— aetat 45
comes it mayn't be where you are lookin' fer it. As editor all you can do is
to get the best of what is done
A. from those you more or less agree with
B. from those you don't
and in latter case you can editorially profess to be conscious of an energy,
which you believe to be wrongly directed.
251: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 6 October
Dear Harriet: Not being given to gloom or to worrying about calamity I
had not given much thought to Poetry a mag for 195 1. 1 forget how old
you think you are, but you are good for another ten or fifteen years any-
how. However, if you insist on making a will, the coincidence etc. incites
me to the obvious idea that the only person in Amurikuh who cd. continue
your periodical is Marianne. The necessary irreproachable respectability,
the that against which no lousy ploot can object on the grounds of her not
bein' a lady or bein' likely to pervert the growing school child, etc.
It shd. also be possible to get a certain amount of backing for Marianne
that wd. not be available for the wild and boisterous or cerebral younger
males.
Taking yr. editorial as basis, the essential in a continuator wd. be, now
or any time, in the next two decades, someone who could command a cer-
tain amount of financial support. And someone not merely brought up by
you in yr. office. Question of changing name of magazine seems to me
immaterial. Seems to me a continuation of Poetry wd. be the best mem-
orial you cd. wish if it can be arranged that it shd. be a creditable con-
tinuation. You can at any rate finish the quarter century and then retire if
you like. I don't see exactly why you shd. retire, but still if you are making
wills, one may as well discuss will-making.
I will not mention the contents of this note until I hear from you. I am
perfectly willing to undertake solicitation if the idea strikes you favour-
ably. It wd. be better I think for you to consult your firmest guarantors
or even all the guarantors. It wd. then be time to find out if Marianne wd.
entertain the proposition and 3dly, to see what extra support cd. be gained
for her to replace those of your circle who wd. naturally cease to support
Poetry under any change of management.
Let us take it you must have a Christianity-addict: I cejie on that point.
3*5
Rapallo
Marianne has experience — quality dear to the cautious ploot. Kulchuh
— more than enough. Conservatism but not absolute plantedness. At any
rate I see no other successor who wd. do you honour and who is a prac-
tical proposition.
In reply to yr. last: I am not interested in roach-powder but if the jani-
tors and swabbers can't keep the place clean, I take it somebody has got to
provide insecticide or even squash the individual cockroach. In the general
cause of health. ' Modern cities are impossible without preventive medicine
and modern sanitation.'
At present I shd. say (to return to constructivity) that Marianne's talents
(discretion, etc.) were not being used by her god damned country.
I don't know how much she makes at whatever she is doing; someday
or other she will presumably need less and have less weight to carry . . .
etc. . . .
I dunno 'bout the Chicago pt. of view. Nothing but a definite position
wd, I suppose take M.M. to Chicago or move her from one side of 4th
Ave. to the other. But Chicago might be inspirationated to bring one of
the best contemporary Amurkun minds into Chicago. After all Marianne
wuz born in St. Louis, and can be claimed by the West in general.
The decision seems to rest more with you personally than with die
outer circumjacence.
Anyhow, lemme know if it's worth a try.
P.S. Nacherly I can't tell anything about your local factional fights.
Utterly unable to see that your advisory committee have ever contributed
either brains, knowledge or energy.
M.M. ideal presiding officer; if you think there is a local faction that
wants or insists on a representative of vagueness and slush and glad-hand-
ing, I suppose vice-presidencies were invented for conciliating such. . . .
252: To H. B. Lathrop
Rapallo >, 16 December
Dear Professor Lathrop: I have just written to Hatfield re a matter that
might have been dealt with more directly.
I strongly suspect that a few hundred, perhaps a few dozen swine in
editorial offices do more harm to contemporary letters in America than all
the pubk bad taste and ignorance put together.
An antidote. A Who's Who of editors stating the four cardinal points.
316
1931— aetat 46
1. Whom did they (do they) print?
2. Whom did they print before anyone else, or before the author had a
reputation?
3. Whom did they refuse?
4. Whom did they fail to invite (in a suitable manner, for and in regard
to resources at their disposal) ?
Book shd. be compiled by impartial patient students, having no per-
sonal ax to grind in any particular case. It would be of gt. national service,
as well as being thesis for Ph.D. or several theses.
Our young friend Z nicely fixed as edtr. for new publishing house.
Question of cheap book of first quality seems much nearer solution.
Crosby, TO (Oppen), Rexroth all promising to deal with it, and the first
two have work in press. Carlos Williams, Hemingway (unpopular item)
and my collected prose among things being handled by the three producers.
My Cavalcanti nearly ready. I don't know whether you can put me
through to yr. Romance dept. or in fact any part of Univ. dealing with
polyglot letters. The edtn. ought to serve as start for a new method of
handling international texts. I want names both of men who can do the
work, and of 'powers' capable of assisting. Having (that is to say all but
4 pages) got through with the Cavalcanti in spite of all the devils in Eng.
or Am., I am in stronger position than when merely having something of
my own that 'wanted doing.'
253: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 27 December
Dear Harriet: The intelligence of the nation more important than the
comfort or life of any one individual or the bodily life of a whole genera-
tion.
It is difficult enough to give the god damn amoeba a nervous system.
Having done your bit to provide a scrap of rudimentary ganglia amid
the wholly bestial suet and pig fat, you can stop; but I as a responsible
intellect do not propose (and have no right) to allow that bit of nerve
tissue (or battery wire) to be wrecked merely because you have a sister in
Cheefoo or because there are a few of your friends whom it would be
pleasanter to feed or spare than to shoot.
//"that indescribably vile town Chicago don't treat you right, I shall also
ave something to say about that. t
Rapallo
Of course there are several things I have been tryin to teach you for the
past 20 years. I don't lay as much stock by teachin the elder generation as
by teachin' the risin', and if one gang dies without learnin' there is always
the next. Keep on remindin 'em that we ain't bolcheviks, but only the terri-
fyin' voice of civilization, kulchuh, refinement, aesthetic perception.
If you want to mark the end of anything, all right. The continuation can
be called Poetry, Second Series, or new series, if that hackneyed term is
still heap big mumbo on the lake shore (New Buildings, Blunt's, built in
1467 etc.).
Secondly, entirely apart from the above, can you tell me which, if any,
of the guarantors is not violently hostile to me personally?
Note that from your 20 years' correspondence to me one wd. have
gathered that the guarantors are mostly a set of swinish savages, with a few
rare wooden-headed pedants among them, all hating me like the devil and
rigidly hostile to any and every development in art and letters. If this
impression is incorrect, it shd. be easy for you to correct it?
What can you tell me of Breasted?
Now, lie right down and git a bit of rest. I am not going to essplode any
dynamite till I get an answer.
It is up to you to provide me with a committee that can at least look as if
it wuz galvanized.
With Possum Eliot apptd. to Hawvud, he won't bring the glad poly-*
anna yawp, but the ignorance of the Stork-Auslander-Mabie-Canby
period can't continue.
You jess set down on the sofa. The dentist isn't goin to hurt.
You send me a list of the ten best people. I promise not to call Chicago a
pig-stye or hog-butchery, or say anything narsty.
I spose Alice is still vigorously tubercular. A doc last night wuz tellin of
a tub. family, all the sons died of tubercules at from 70 to 74, whereas the
ole tubercular father died of it at 97. Still I spose she wd. have to give Chi.
absent treatment.
Why ain't the list of guarantors published more often? The bastuds
sometimes like pubcty.
In the meantime, let Zab use his ingenuity livenin up the maggerzeen.
Experiment to see which way it can [lacuna] not and should not include
the least taint of pity for your errors and limitations. The latter can be
pardoned toyou, but not tolerated in themselves, or for themselves.
Not only shd. the nation have an intelligence but it shd. have a bloody
sight better intelligence than it now shows any protuberant signs of. It
shd. be so intelligent that things like C and S wd. die pumb
bang of the shock. Health kills no end of bacillae.
318
193 1 — aetat 46
You are good for at least another ten years. Pass on yr. local job, and
come abroad an git edderkated.
Your past correspondence wd. lead me to believe that Zabel is the only
thing you have ever had in the office that wuz worth a damn or able to putt
on a postage stamp. And that Zab is not the pussonality required to get
cash out of the pig-packers. All right . . . got to work with what there is.
Marianne has got the brains to edit (all sewed up in a bag).
What about Genevieve Tagrt as a magnifique facade for the [lacuna]
A factory is a better muniment than a crematorium. Cemeteries interest
me very little.
Chicago has had the energy to run Poetry for 20 years with you jabbin*
the blighters in the small of the back. Quinn reported that it was the only
thing going on in Chi. (That was an error; or rather, years after, they got
an oriental institoot.)
I suggest that you take 5 months in Cheefoo and one month in Rapallo.
I dare say my ancestors cd. give you a bed and breakfast; and you cd.
catch yr. lunch in the gulph. They got a octopus rather biggern you are
only 2 days ago.
I also suggest that you find someone (polite if necessary) to take on the
sweaty work. I don't care whether Chi. pays its guarantee to Poetry via
politeness or at the point of a gun. You got it by bein* more civilized than
the hog-packers. Savage tribute to the beau monde.
What ought to be iz that Marianne or someone ought to take on the
work, an you ought to git either a pension or you ought to git a small
salary and write your little piece about 'ope, charity, and the Xmas sperrit
when you so feel inclined.
319
1932
254: To John Drummond
Rapallo y 18 February
Dear Mr. Drummond: It might almost be worth while to correct (pub-
licly) the error of yr. opening sentence. It is not expensive editions that
discourage circulation. The sacks of pus which got control of Brit,
pubctn. in or about 1912 or '14 and increased strangle hold on it till at
least 1932 have done their utmost to keep anything worth reading out of
print and out of ordinary distribution via commerce (booksellers).
You have only to note that the best work of Joyce, Eliot, Wyndham
Lewis (not Beachcomber) have only got into print via specially started
publishing ventures, outside the control of the Fleet St. ring.
There is no reason why young England shd. pardon the ineffable pol-
luters and saboteurs. What they have done to stifle literature in Eng., tho
not so important as the press-bosses' stifling of economic discussion, is all
of piece.
The hell cantos are specifically London, the state of English mind in
1919 and 1920.
Dear J.D.: The foregoing sheet you can cite publicly; the rest of this is
private.
1. Don't knock Mussolini, at least not until you have weighed up the
obstacles and necessities of the time. He will end with Sigismondo and the
men of order, not with the pus-sacks and destroyers. I believe that any-
thing human will and understanding of contemporary Italy cd. accom-
plish, he has done and will continue to do. Details later. Don't be blinded
by theorists and a lying press.
Faber is bringing out my ABC of Economics in a few weeks.
Metevsky is definitely ZaharofF, so far as the facts could be ascertained
at the time — none of them essentially contradicted since. Tho of course he
stands for a type and a state of mind; and an error in detail wdn't invalidate
him.
There is satire in the Iliad md the Odyssey. I cannot believe that satire is
in itself alien to epos. Nor do I think you meant to imply that it was.
There are only three main planes. The Provence merely a part of per-
320
1932— aetat 46
spective. Vide any painting with distance in background, as distinct from
stage scenery on different layers of cardboard or hangings.
Best div. prob. the permanent, the recurrent, the casual.
I wonder how far the Mauberley is merely a translation of the Homage
to S.P. 9 for such as couldn't understand the latter?
An endeavour to communicate with a blockheaded epoch.
Every effort toward independent pubctn. is worth while. When
you have been through more, you will understand my ferocity against
little , each unimportant in himself but ultimately being
sources of typhoid. A little dung in the well, no importance . . . but un-
diseased water a public need. You young, and more especially the chaps
who were young ten years ago, don't yet realize how much little pimps
and edtrs. have done yew wrrrrong. No use weepin over the past. But kill
Smith and Son; kill Richmond of Times Sup. and all the rest,
Observer, etc.
Note that the Fleet St. press is not yet open and that for 20 or 30 years
four old bigots of Smith and Son have practically controlled the distribu-
tion of printed matter in Eng.
I recommend New Eng. Weekly for economic discussoin (overlook
most of its lit. opinion). Also C.H.D. remarks on education near beg. of
Warning Democracy very useful even outside econ.
Enough for one morning.
You might in considering England, consider what writers have been
expelled through impossibility of getting 30/ bob a week from the brit.
publishing system. And the men who have upheld, caused, etc., that state
of things. Whether you are ' technically a gent.' or whether any of the
Makers are contemplating a vie des lettres, profession of writing etc.
255: To John Drummond
Rapallo, 18 February
Dear Mr. Drummond: I continue. 1. 1 don't remember whether you were
referring to XXX zs if it were the whole poem because we agreed that that
wd. be the better 'policy.' I take it you know that it is only the first large
segment of 'about 100.'
Your selections very good. Also 'everything relating to everything
else.'
What is Leavis? He recently sent me his 'Primer.'
x 3 21
Rapallo
P. 45, personal love poetry neither in Cantos nor in any Epos . . . even
(say) Beatrice in the Commedia.
Only a fragment of Zuk's article was pubd in Criterion. Complete
French version in Echanges and Italian in Indice.
2. Other pt.: A critical manifesto is being planned in America. I don't
know why die kilted Scots and effete Britons shd. wait for Hollywood and
the PEE-raries.
'Not so much crit. as creat.' on yr. title page.
I dunno how you feel about Eliot's evil influence. Not that his crit. is
bad but that he hasn't seen where it leads. What it leads to. Attention on
lesser rather than greater. At a time when there is imperative need of a
basis, i.e., what ole Unc. Wm. Yeats called 'new sacred book of the arts.*
Something, or some place where men of good will can meet without
worrying about creed and colour eta
At any rate, that is what is behind the proposed manifesto, which has
not been sent to editors (like W. C. Williams, Eliot himself, or other who
have regular pulpit . . . not that some of 'em mightn't have signed). At any
rate, the signers to date are: Zukofsky, Bunting, Marianne Moore, E.P.
I forget who else has been invited. One can assume a few more. However,
even the locus in which it will appear is still a bit uncertain.
I am sending you the gist of it. If you people want to manifest along the
same lines, don't wait for the Am. pubctn. Might be more effective coming
from a new group. You wd. say that news has reached you of an analogous
manifesto being prepared in the U.S.A.
Seems to me ' Co (n temporaries) and Makers' as good a place as any for
the move to come from. Heaven knows we have been waiting for over ten
years for a sign of life in Britain.
Substance of manifesto:
i. The critic most worth respect is the one who actually causes an im-
provement in the art he criticises.
2. The best critic of next rank is the one who most focuses attention on
the best work.
3. The pestilence masking itself as a critic distracts attention from the
best work, either to secondary work that is more or less 'good* or to
tosh, to detrimental work, dead or living snobisms, or to indefinite
essays on criticism.
322
1932— aetat 47
ij6: To Langston Hughes
Rapallo, iZjune
Dear Hughes: Thanks very much for 'Scotsboro Limited.' As for the case
itself, I don't know that my name has been used on any protest, and I don't
know that my name or anyone's name can be of any use. I believe the
American govt, as intended and as a system is as good a form of govt, as
any, save possibly that outlined in the new Spanish constitution, but no
govt, can go on forever if it allows the worst men in it to govern and if it
lends itself repeatedly to flagrant injustice.
There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme Southern states are
governed by the worst there is in them.
I can't see how the 'left' can make anything save confusion until it can
think more clearly about economics, though it is no more ignorant of them
than any other group or party.
All of which you are welcome to quote if you think it will do any good.
I am not hiding my opinion.
257: To John Drummond
[postcard]
Rapallo, 3 December
As the beastlier segment of yr. nation which concerns itself with printing
books, does about its best to keep mine out of the country, it seems to me
that you (presumably as Saul of Tarsus) might be advised not to quote
more than 2 Cantos gross, I mean not more than say 150 or 200 lines
altogether; and that you might give a better idea of the poem by shorter
and scattered quotations. Most Cantos have in them 'binding matter,' i.e.,
lines holding them into the whole poem and these passages don't much
help the reader of an isolated fragment. . . . More likely to confuse than
help. . . .
3*3
Rapallo
258: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo y 9 December
My Dear Ole Harriet: Ignorance is the bane of Chicago and the whole
blasted continent.
'Carnal' and 'uterine' as used in my letter are simple legal terms,
technical legal terms, that you wd. find in the most proper English as late
as Jefferson's time — meaning relations on mama's side and relations on
papa's side of the family. And if America hadn't just discovered sodomy,
thanks to high-brow papers and Vanity Fair, you wdn't have suspected
Fred. II, who was certainly not given that way. Pier della Vigna was
secretary of the Sicilian Treasury (or equivalent). Like most of Mr. Hard-
ing's cabinet he cheated and stole the public funds, difference being that he
was executed instead of receiving national honours.
At any rate, fer God's sake let Zabel see the original text of my letter
and send an unexpurgated copy to T 1 don't think even it will make
the obtuse middle-aged young man think . . . but no use shielding him from
the chance since I have taken the trouble to write it.
Send him this paragraph also, s.v.p.
3*4
1933
259: To William Bird
Rapallo y 1 5 January
Deer Willyum: When t'ell 'ave I ever putt on the 'high* or triple tiYiara
inaddressin' you??
I am deeply interested in yr. biYography which as uzul does you credit.
I observe that you are a follerer ov Alex Hamilton, whereas TJ. is my
cherished forebear.
Have you had Douglas* last pamphlek, which contains one misprint: a
plus fer a x or somethin' ? ?
The Vols. Cantos unforchoonately are not sold, but I will remit if you
like, or will cheerfully spot up the binder's fee, and remit when the sale
(if) occurs. If you are under slight shortage, I will cheerfully remit at once.
Yaas, I remember baptism' Mont. Is he in jail or out at the moment?
Agreein' fer sake of argyfaxshun that state is protector of privilege,
whose b-y privilege?? Why not spread it out a bit so'z to include some-
body not on the inside credit Federal Reserve gang graft?? Vide C.H.D.
on the kulschurl heritage ! Sfar as I see, the technocrats either don't know,
or they are dodgin' the econ. issue (tactfully riz by W.B. in his remarks on
the Injun Ocean).
Great pity you don't take to licherchoor. The merit of yr. privik corres-
pondence in spots 1 1
As fer yr. final pp., that is about the kind of mess that has been tres-
passin on my phantastikon for several weeks. Just a bloody or merely dis-
orderly disorder with no sense, no thought, no ideas, no program, no
sense of organization anywhere in the bloody lotuvum. Do you expect
Col. Louse to dictate before or after the collapse?
Is Mont or anybody on the spot considerin' any noo mushroom to rize
from the ashes?
Any objection to my quotin yr. epistle (without sayin who wrote it, or
over yr. siggychoor, if you prefer)? If I get round to doin a narticle on the
woild at large.
Re Comite des Forges: What is yr. op. re the followin inf. reed: Seul
le Petit Parisien, Pet. Journal Journal, L'QEuvre, et les journaux d'extr&ne
3*5
Rapallo
gauche, Populaire, Humaniti, sont libres de tout controle financier de la
part de la Comit£ des Forges. lis peuvent avoir des contrats avec des
journaux commandite par la comity du pt. de vue d'affaires (publicity)
mais ceci n'entrave pas leur liberty. — / — /
260: To William Rose Ben£t
[William Rose Benit had planned an anthology in which the poets were to
choose their own poems and comment on them. Pound had refused to join in,
and Benit, thinking that he considered the fee insufficient, cabled that he would
himself meet any difference in fee, that William C. Williams and Wallace
Stevens had already sent material, and that he hoped Pound would reconsider^
Rapallo, 23 January
Dear Mr. Ben£t: I appreciate your kindness in cabling but I am afraid I
shall have to be even more explicit in my answer.
I think you have done too much harm, as asst. edtr. of the Sat. Rev.
Lit., from year to year pouring poison into or onto the enfeebled or
adolescent Amurkn mind; or at any rate doing yr. and Canby's damndest
to preserve mildew and betray critical standards.
That may be Greek to you. I have no proof that you or C. ever make
the faintest effort to understand anything whatever outside yr. own set of
fixed ideas and conveniences. Yr. weekly never opens up to what I con-
sider decent opinion or sound criticism. You accept the worst infamies of
American imbecility and superstitions without a murmur, or without any
persistent effort to clean up the mess.
Yr. proposed anth. is merely another effort (however delicate) to shove
over more god damn'd sob stuff, personal touch, anything, absolutely any-
thing, to shield yr. booblik from fact, what is printed on page.
'Circumstances under which it was written' are no excuse. Author's
sentiments re poem after it is written, etc. Browning explained the matter
in words of one syllable or at least in very simple language.
At any rate I think I shd. forego the 25 dollars for the sake of critical
integrity.
Do you understand this letter?
The foetor of the Sat. Rev's critical effort to uphold the almost-good
and the not-quite-dead and the fear of facing the demands made in my
HowtoReadW
How the deuce to you expect me to swallow all that for the sake of a
small sum of money ?
326
J 933 — aetat 47
261: To E. E. Cummings
Rapalby 6 April
Dear Cummings: Somewhere or other there is a l'er ov mine saying I want
to include yr. trans, of Aragon's Red Front in a nanthology Faber is bring-
ing out in London, Share out and small propoitional advance to contri-
butors: Bill Wms., Marianne, etc.
1. Because I want it. (Also want a few poems of yrs. not already known
in England, preferably poems that have not been included in published
vols. (mag. printing don't matter), or in my Profile (if I repeat from
Profile it will look as if there lacked abundance of prudukk).
2. Because I think it may be the only way to get the Red Front printed in
Eng. (tho' that may be error) or at any rate as good a way as any immedi-
ately available.
3. 1 want to ram a cert, amount of material into that sodden mass of half-
stewed oatmeal that passes for the Brit. mind. Or at any rate. . . .
Thank either you or Covici for Eimu
I dunno whether I rank as them wot finds it painful to read; and if I said
anything about obscurity, it wd. fare ridere polli — in view of my recent
pubctns. Also I don't think Eimi is obscure, or not very; but, the longer a
work is, the more and longer shd. be the passages that are perfectly clear
and simple to read. Matter of scale, matter of how long you can cause the
reader to stay immobile or nearly so on a given number of pages. (Obvi-
ously not to the Edgar Wallace virtue (?) of the opposite hurry scurry.)
Also, despite the wreaths upon the Jacobean brow, 1 a page two or
three, or two and one half centimetres narrower (at least a column of type
that much narrower) might solve all the difficulties. That has, I think, been
tested optically, etc. The normal or average eye sees a certain width with-
out heaving from side to side. May be hygienic for it to exercise its wobble,
but I dunno that the orfer shd. sacrifice himself on that altar.
At any rate, I can see
'he adds, unhatting and becombing his raven mane,'
but I don't see the rest of the line until I look specially at it. Multiply that 40
times per page for 400 pages. . . .
Mebbe there is wide-angle eyes. But chew gotter count on a cert. no. ov
yr. readers bein at least as dumb as I am. Even in Bitch and Bugle I found
1 The reference is to S. A. Jacobs who supervised the production oiEimu
3*7
Rapallo
it difficult to read the stuff consecutively. Which probab. annoys me a lot
more than it will you.
At any rate, damn glad to have the book and shall presumably continue
taken er chaw now here n naow there.
I suppose you've got a Brit. pubr. for it? Or possibly Cov. has a
Lunnon orfice by naow?
Otherwise . . . yr. opinyum re advisability of putting a few into anth. as
horse d'overs or whetters. As fer xmpl. p. 338.
Oh well Whell hell itza great woik. Me complimenks.
P.S. Please try to reply suddenly re anthol. as Faber is weepin' fer the
copy and I want to finish the fatigue before I go up to Parigi (address
Chase Bank there after May 5 th), but please answer this note to this
Rapallo address.
262: To Agnes Bedford
Rapallo, April
1 do not want 'Tos Temps' sung in a translation. The hole
point of my moozik bein that the moozik fits the words and not some
OTHER WORDS. . . .
The meaning is just the usual. Point of Sordello being that he can get
life into what any other troub wd. have made a flat cliche. . . .
It is first strophe, purely conventional meaning. And not to be sung
OR PRINTED IN ENGLISH.
The toodle oot of the dicky bird, but perfectly lyric, and the ultimate
mastery of his medium.
263: To John Drummond
Rapallo, 4 May
Dear Drummond: 1. 1 have writ the N.E.W. to correct one minor mis-
apprehension on yr. part re structure of XXX.
2. Yesterday I got note from Pollinger saying he cdn't place Mercanti di
Cannonij and I sent up a curse to Orage which I hope he will print.
3. 1 am using yr. selections from XXX in my Faber anthology, as they
wanted me to include something of my own.
328
J 933 — aetat 47
This note starts from paragraph 2. It is not an isolated instance. When
bloody ever a book appears on the continent that is of any interest it is
apparently impossible to get a translation pubd. in Eng.
Frobenius, Cocteau's Mystere Laic, the MercantL Apparently no differ-
ence what the subject or the kind of book, suffice it that the book is fit to
read or at any rate the kind of book that I buy and lend to my friends for
the sake of improvin' their conversation or damagin their bloody iggor-
unce. . . . And the inevitable answer is that brit. publishiter can't make
money on it. Thinks he can't. After a decade's delay Faber apparently is
trying to get my own stuff into print. . . .
Damnd if I see anything for it but a new heave by the young, your
elders are no more use than a barrel of wind.
It is apparently impossible to get reprints of antient works. Let that
pass, the contemporary work stands in greater need of being printed if
you expect to live your next twenty years in bearable country.
Heaven knows The Egoist wasn't a model publishing house, but it did
at least print The Portrait of the Artist, Prufrock, Tarr, and Quia Pauper
Amavi and wd. have pub. Ulysses but all the printers refused.
The Mystere Laic was printed in Pagany (N. York), but ought to be
issued sep. and in England.
You may see my remarks re MercantL Orage will have told you of
Cockburn's The Week, sort of private news service, to supply defects, lack
of honesty in daily press. Same need for books pubd. on continent. The
publishing trade won't do it for you. What 'group', body, corpse or
whichever you can evangelize, I dunno. But it must be time for a new
heave of some sort.
P.S. If you people at Cam. can do anything in the way of a nucleus, I'll
do what I can to bring in the scattered and incongruous units of my
acquaintance.
I don't know whether there is any use trying to combine international
elements; Von Unruh and Haas, here; Williams, Zukofsky, Serly in N.Y.
— bodi trying to start printing, but they wdn't have an eye to specifically
British needs. . . .
I dare say you know all the inhabitants of yr. island who might be
interested.
Apart from Orage and N.E. W.\ Stokes, Cockburn, Rodker, Wyndham
Lewis (possibly ... oh yes, mebbe), Eliot (passively), several members of
the fair sex, D. R. Young, town counCilOr of Kinross, the somewhat
savage and wholly impecunious Bridson raging in the back streets of
Manchuster. Even Flint who ought to be made to be useful. Some younger
man might smoke him up. He seems now draped in grief over ole 'Arold's
3*9
Rapallo ^
tombstone. Never at best distinguished for energy and initiative. Ernest
Rhys has no objection to there being a bit of life in letters, though he is
utterly impotent when it comes to arousing Messieurs Dent. Still, just as
well to know what centennarians will refrain from sabotaging an effort on
principle. — / — /
264: To Harriet Monroe
Rapallo, 14 September
Dear Arriet: I know you hate like hell to print me, and that an epic includes
history and history ain't all slush and babies' pink toes. I admit that eco-
nomics are in themselves uninteresting, but heroism is poetic, I mean it is
fit subject for poesy.
Also re my Christmas carol: damn it all, the only thing between food
and the starving, between abolition of slums and decent life is a thin barrier
of utterly damned stupidity re the printing of metal discs or paper strips.
30 years ago people didn't know. It is as complex and as simple as Marconi's
control of electricity.
Anyhow Van Buren was a national hero, and the young ought to know
it. Also this canto continues after the Adams. Printed separate, it will be
clearer than if I pubd. 35 and 36 next.
Consider that Van's autobiography lay unprinted from i860 or so down
to 1920, probably because people who knew of it were too god damn
stupid to understand it.
Anyhow the crush of crisis, and Frankie getting into a jam, now that he
has seen and admitted half the truth in his Looking Forward, can't keep
the Van B. out of print any longer. Whoever can think, ought to be made
to do it now. (Damn my reppertashun fer writin pretty sentimengs.) As
there are a few clean and decent pages in the nashunul history, better print
'em. And Van B. was one of 'em. — / — /
265: To T. C.Wilson
Rapallo, 24 September
Dear Wilson: On ye compleat aht of ye schoolmaister.
Yr. letter to surface. Teaching damn sight easier way of earning living
than hackwriting. No need to 'stagnate/ 1 didn't during the 4 months they
330
J 933 — aetat 48
stood me. I don't say Crawfordsville didn't cram on hours or misery, but
nowt unbearable. You aren't a hundred years old. Plenty of time for you
to tank up and fit yourself for Europe, Asia or Africa or whereverwhither.
Secret of teaching is a bit theatrical. Simply act the best prof you have
known. The irritation of fools won't come from stewddents but from the
•orthorities.'
Anybody who can penetrate the text-book ring wd. confer a blessing.
Small manifest on that subject somewhere. Gaston Paris wrote text-books,
and France had some sort of culture and amenity. Also the most paying
line, after religion. One text-book cd. keep you in Europe for life. Am
inclined to offer you 25 % of whatever I might get out of a text-book if
you succeeded in inserting me into the text-book racket. I don't say it wd.
be easy, but keep it in mind. . . .
Tenny rate, stagnation comes from inside; and not from circumst.
Clearer idea you have of what you want, greater prob. of getting. But
never waste time filling in details. That bitches it. — / — /
266: To Mary Barnard
[postcard]
Rapdllo, 29 October
Age? Intentions? Intention? How much intention? I mean how hard and
for how long are you willing to work at it?
Rudiments of writing: vide my pubd. crit. Rudiments music??? My
unpubd. and mostly unwritten crit.
Contents ? ? ' Lethe ' the best because there is more in it.
What magazines do you refer to? Young uns that don't pay or the old
fungus that has been putrifying on nooz standz fer 40 year?
Nice gal, likely to marry and give up writing or what Oh ?
267: To T. C. Wilson
Rapallo y 30 October
Dear Wilson: It wd. be abs. useless to send the poems to Eliot. He don't
even like the best of Active AntL or 'admit' any of it, save him, me an*
Marianne.
331
Rapallo
I don't think there is any chance for any yng. feller making a dent in the
pubk. or highly select consciousness by means of pomes writ in the style
of 1913/15. An thet's flat and no use my handlin you with gloves.
I do not believe there are more than two roads:
1. The old man's road (vide Tom. Hardy) — content, the insides, the
subject matter.
2. Music. And I am slowly gettin round to a few formulations, shocked
largely by the god damn ignorance in which I have lived, and which
wuz inherited from the generation of boobs who preceded me.
-/-/
If you can really roast Palgrave, or, better, treat Untermeyer's
last as the prize specimen of Palgraveism, Criterion wd. prob.
be joy'd. Eliot thinks Louie Unt has 'done more to discredit poetry in
America than any man livinV The god damn slipperiness and funda-
mental falsification of Unt's notes (Albatross Living Verse) is phenomenal.
And if you can really write the disinfectant, the specific disinfectant for
that, Tommy will print the strongest you can do. — / — /
268: To William P. Shepard
Rapallo, 23 November
Dear Doc Shepard: — / — / If you, by the way, want to keep the students
interested in contemporary French writing, there is after 10 years an
awakening in Paris. Give 'em V Abominable vdnaliti de la presse or Ren6
Crevel's Les Pieds dans le plat. Apart from which, I spose they have
already had Cocteau. There are also Albert's Londres rapportages. La
Chine en folie, the best of 'em. Young Rostand has done a bad play,
Marchands de canons, vilely written, but with decent intentions. Polaire
was very good in it. I don't seriously suggest anyone shd. read it, but it
marks the turn from irresponsible snobism to constructive effort, or re-
awakening of consciousness and conscience in France.
Dif. between H. James and that ouistiti Proust. Pr. gives himself away
in pref. to Morand's first book. The little lickspittle wasn't satirizing, he
really thought his pimps, buggars and opulent idiots were important,
instead of the last mould on the dying cheese.
Ten years ago Gaby Picabia came into studio and saw Notturno on my
table and lifted an eyebrow; I picked up a current Proust and said 'Well
. . ? ' She answered ' Eeh, voui, vous avez raison.'
332
J 933 — aetat 48
Gabe (D'Annunzio) at any rate had the 'sperit ova man in him,' (and
incidentally some of his later writings are dam good as writings, laconism,
no frills and pantalettes, tho* of course he is likely to drop back into it at
any moment).
Incidentally the grease and fugg of England and the kowtow of their
supposed aht reached an apex this spring. Elgar (if you know whom I
mean? Sir Ed. O.M.) on being introduced to the Princesse de Polignac
(before Menuhin concert) opens conversation with hoarse whisper:
'Hyperion won.' (Condensed biography of the lady on request. However,
as friend of Strawinsky, she was not deeply impressed by Ed's dogginess.)
And so forth. — / — /
333
1934
269: To T. C Wilson
Rapalloy j January
Dear Wilson: — / — / Bill W. prob. one of four. You can't throw out
either Yeats or Possum yet. And old BinBin looks as if he might
have found the light at last after 45 years' labour. That punk C
displays more ignorant stupidity in half a page than any known living
animal except U .
Pore old M Doin his damndest. Been running after Farrar to
get my 31/41 printed. . . . Damn it all, he ought to be encouraged. Yet:
vast difference between deriving, showing influence, being influenced and
simply spoiling a job. I don't think he is 'accomplished,' just facile. So god
damn easy to do a thing badly or approximtely or loosely after it has once
been done with precision. Like all these people doing Picasso mandolins,
with no regard to the shape.
A guy named Cullis is beating up the Britons. Wants me to edit a mag
again. I have replied that if he will bother, I wd. edit an annual (not a
magazine, but an annual anthol. Not the same gang each year. If he swings
it, I shd. want to see a batch of yr. mss. in say about 6 months' time. Also
yr. views on yr. contemporaries and worthy confreres.
My tentative scheme: to weed or omit elders in Active AntL; to look to
Cambridge Left (Drummond, etc.), Bridson, Oppen (if energy don't fail),
T.C.W., an unknown M. Barnard (??? nothing assured), Cullis, if pos-
sible; Rakosi capable of anything more???
I don't think at my age it is a suitable job. I mean one can't select the
next generation as one selects one's own, but it seems almost the only knot
hole for new writers to get thru. Act. Anth. really clearing off arrears of the
past 7 years. Ought to be something younger and fresher.
Has Laughlin written anything? Apart from a few things in Hoot and
Advoc}} Any rate, he's in no hurry, and I needn't worry. He's got two
mags to spread in. But I do distinctly want guidance from younger man if
I take on the job.
Surely Bunting and Bridson must be better than Eliot's deorlings. Tho
I dare say Auden and Bottrall {not Spender) are among young England's
334
1934 — aetat 48
best dozen. Can't remember the names of those guys at Cambridge
(England), but thought they were awakening, as the neogeorgians are
NOT.
That snipe s. Ain't man enough to answer, but has adopted a good
deal of information contained in private letter. I spose thet is the yitt
coming thru. (Don't be an anti-Semite, and don't mention this, as it is
better to have him cleaning the sewer than clogging it).
Kemp, Goodman, Madge (at Cam.) — list discovered. — / — /
270: To Sarah Perkins Cope
Rapallo, 1 j January
— J — / One of most valued readers seemed to find the Cantos entertaining;
at least that's what he said after 20 minutes, with accent of relieved sur-
prise, having been brought up to Italian concept of poetry: something
oppressive and to be revered.
Skip anything you don't understand and go on till you pick it up again.
All tosh about foreign languages making it difficult. The quotes are all
either explained at once by repeat or they are definitely of the things indi-
cated. If reader don't know what an elefant is, then the word is obscure.
I admit there are a couple of Greek quotes, one along in 39 that can't be
understood without Greek, but if I can drive the reader to learning at least
that much Greek, she or he will indubitably be filled with a durable grati-
tude. And if not, what harm? I can't conceal the fact that the Greek lan-
guage existed.
Ole Binyon, by the way, has just made a rather interesting trans, of
Dante's Inferno, carefully exposing all the defects of the original. Much
better than exposing a set of defects not in the original.
271: To Laurence Binyon
Rapallo, 21 January
My dear Laurence Binyon: If any residuum of annoyance remain in yr.
mind because of the extremely active nature of the undersigned — (it is
very difficult for a man to believe anything hard enough for it to matter
335
Rapallo
a damn what he believes, without causing annoyance to others) —
anyhow ... I hope you will forget it long enough to permit me to express
my very solid appreciation of yr. translation of the Inferno.
Criterion has asked me for a thousand words by the end of next week,
but I am holding out for more space, which will probably delay publica-
tion for heaven knows how long. When and if the review appears and if it
strikes you as sufficiently intelligent, I shd. be glad thereafter to send you
the rest of the notes I have made. Minutiae, too trifling to print. But at any
rate I have gone through the book, I shd. think, syllable by syllable. And
as Bridges and Leaf are no longer on the scene, the number of readers
possessed of any criteria (however heretical) for the writing of English
verse and at the same time knowing the difference between Dante and
Dunhill is limited.
I don't think one ever suggests an acceptable emendation but one does
occasionally put one's finger on a slip or a momentary inattention or finds
the spot where another man can tighten up his idiom.
I was irritated by the inversions during the first 8 or 10 cantos, but
having finished the book, I think you have in every (almost every) case
chosen the lesser evil in dilemma.
For 40 pages I wanted you to revise; after that I wanted you to go on
with the Purgatorio and Paradiso before turning back to the black air. And
I hope you will.
I hope you are surviving the New England winter. There is a savage
young man named Laughlin (Jas.), who may or may not be
attending yr. lectures. Possibly too diffident to present himself or possibly
thinks his opinions too heretical to make conversation agreeable. If you
are meeting individual students, he is one worth bothering about.
272: To Mary Barnard
Rapallo, 22 January
Dear M.B.: Do understand that at yr. tender age too much criticism is
possibly worse than none.
Roudedge promises to bring out my ABC of Reading by April or there-
abouts. That contains/rarr of the lessons. — / — /
There is so little Sappho that that won't take long, after you buy a crib.
I personally think Homer the best Greek. But that don't mean you are
warned off the grass re either iEschylus or Alexandria.
336
1934 — aetat 48
A uniyersity without the Lavignac Laurencie is a fare*.
You hate translation??? What of it?? Expect to be carried up Mt.
Helicon in an easy chair?
Write yr. own ticket. Invent some form of exercise that don't depend on
the state of yr. liver. Obviously an exercise means something that tires
some muscle.
'Lai' starts with something nearly a bad Sapphic line. Try writing
Sapphics. And not persistently using a spondee like that Blighter Horrace,
for the second foot. If you really learn to write proper quantitative
sapphics in the Amurikan langwidge I shall love and adore you all the days
of my life ... eh .. .
provided you don't fill 'em with trype.
I suppose The Dial was dead before you came? Do you know what is
wrong with a rag like Hound and Horn} How much do you dislike it, and
why? This is not a necessary question, but Dial and H andH typify a cer-
tain kind of danger to educated American young.
Much more important that you should like something than that you
shd. dislike. . . .
That's all I manage for the moment.
273: To Robert McAlmon
Rapallo, 2 February
Dear Bob: Here we are again. My usual role of butting into something
that is not strictly my business. But I think both you and Hem have limited
yr. work by not recognizing the economic factor.
Lot of damn rot and 'psychology,' people fussing with in'nards which
are merely the result of economic pressure. Sort out the cussedness and the
god damn idiocy which people keep after the pressure is removed and the
meanness etc. due to A) immediate need; B) habit begotten of need and
worry (plus reaction, booze etc. when the blighters can't stand staying
conscious a minute longer).
I think the whole of egoistic psychological nuvyeling is gone plop
because the people who go on imitating Dostoiev. and die whole damn lot
of 'em won't look at the reality. I.e. what was economics, or inevitable 30
years ago, is now just plain god damn Stupidity, and people not having the
guts to think what the monetary system is. Hell knows the neo-com-
Y 337
Rapallo
munists won't* They think the revolution is going to be in 19x8 in
Moscow.
Lot of psychic bellyache not a problem any longer, any more than man
being melancholy for lack of a pill. Just as damn silly as dying of thirst in
an attic because some kid has turned off the water from the basement.
People too lazy to examine the facts are not intelligent enough to write
interesting books (reduced to bulls and memoirs depending on person-
alities).
And thass that. J.J. drunk no more damn interest than anyone else
drunk ... or rather that is an exaggeration. Still I do think any character in
a Simenon 'tec* w(ould) probably make a better fardel to be carried up-
stair (s). An so forth
274: To T. C. Wilson
Rapallo, (? February)
Dear Wilson: — / — / Why the hell I was born patient, gord alone knows.
You mightn't think it, but when I lose patience something is lost. It ain't
that thur waren't any.
Farrar is doing 31/41, but holding it back, God blast it, till autumn.
Ought to have been in print last Nov. or at any rate before Roose took
over the Fed. Res. deposits.
Bill's worst work is in the 1 921/31 Collected. But there is some damn
good stuff there. After all, the footchoor can leave out the slop. No, he
ain't better than pore ole Possum, and we damn well need 'em
both.— J — I
When I see foist issue of McCoon I can tell better what's needed.
Epitaph
As 'Arriet Monroe approached her eightieth birfday
The Foundation thought it wd. be safe to entrust her
with the destinies of Amurikan poesy.
They had never had faith in her stability during her
earlier period
when she was only 60 or 70.
Emend -— to Bulluwubby, and Coon can have that jem fer hit
maggyzeen.
338
1934— aetat 48
rjy. To Mary Barnard
[postcard]
Rapallo, 23 February
Baloney dollar makes postage ruinous here.
The only book of any use on rhythm is Greek section in vol. I Encyclo-
pedic de la Musique, Laurencie et Lavignac . Sold separately, I
think it cost about 65 francs. No price mark on it. I don't know how much
real use it wd. be . . . but I know nothing else of any use. I have never
worked on it or with it, but it contains intelligent remarks. What they call
solfege, or savoir divider une note, is the job. Whether text book is any
more use than a text book on tennis or trapeze- work, I doubt. Precision in
knowing how long the different notes take in a given place.
Tell
nm "° m rm
I suppose learning to play a Mozart melody, and seeing how it is writ-
ten. Never mind the polyphony.
Certainly dont worry about h andh, periodicals, etc. That part of letter
O.K.
There aren't any rules. Thing is to cut a shape in time. Sounds that stop
the flow, and durations either of syllables, or implied between them,
'forced onto the voice' of the reader by nature of the 'verse.' (E.g., my
Mauberley.) Only stick to sapphics, till you can send me good ones.
276: To the Princesse Edmond de Polignac
Rapallo », (? March)
My dear Princess: Thanks so much for the Janequin. The next step is to
see whether I can entice the Savona singers to sing it (overlooking the old-
fashioned nationalism in La Guerre).
Settles one point, anyhow, namely that the sort of verbal values in the
Arnaut Daniel have been completely thrown overboard in the Chant des
Oiseaux, for sake of counterpoint, etc.
The Marignan seems finally to dispose of Marinetti's illusion that he had
invented something. I am afraid the fantasia you liked was more Miinch
339
Rapallo
than Ign <oto >; I misunderstood his handwriting and thought it was merely
from something outside the Chilesotti collection. I knew he had worked
on the Tr&ors d'Orph6e before coming here.
Gerald Hayes says the Oxford Press is sending me their edtn. of Wm.
Young, whom he (Hayes) proclaims meraviglie e miracoli. The radiators
have arrived, and I hope they will be connected for your convenience if
you again honour us.
277: To Laurence Binyon
Rapallo, 6 March
My dear Laurence Binyon: I am all for your going on with it, as you have
begun at the bitter end. I have had proofs of the Criterion article, so sup-
pose it will be in the next number. After you have seen it, I will send the
marked copy; for the minutiae. I don't think it (the copy) wd. be much use
without the article.
You have the main quality. One can read the book as a book. The rest is
now hardly more than a matter of proof correcting.
By 'inversions' I meant any word out of its normal place. Than 1
heaven you didn't bother about (it) at the start. Concept of English word
order didn't exist in D's day anyhow.
The one footnote I shall add, when I reprint, is from Lord Bryce, who
was more intelligent than either of us and saw that Dante meant plutus>
definitely putting money-power at the root of Evil, and was not merely
getting muddled in his mythology. — / — /
Inversions of accent, as you call 'em, are dead right (that will all be
clear, I think, from Criterion article).
All your work on Oriental art is bound to profit you when you get to
the lighting of the Paradiso. Not one hour of it but can go into the render-
ing. One's preparation for a real job is possibly never what one does when
one thinks one is preparing.
P.S. I wonder if you are using (in lectures) a statement I remember your
making in talk, but not so far as I recall, in print. 'Slowness is beauty,'
which struck me as very odd in 1908 (when I certainly did not believe it)
and has stayed with me ever since — shall we say as proof that you violated
British habit; and thought of it.
340
x 934 — aetat 48
278: To Felix E. Schelling
Rapallo, April
Dear Doc Schelling: As one of the most completely intolerant men I have
ever met, the joke is on you if you expected to teach anyone liberality.
As for my being embittered, it won't wash; everybody who comes near
me marvels at my good nature. Besides, what does it matter to me, person-
ally? 1 don't get scratched by it, but the howls of pain that reach me from
the pore bastids that are screwed down under it and who have no outlet,
save in final desperation writing to someone in Europe.
A letter from a state university this A.M., along with yours, from a man
whom I never heard of till he wrote me two months ago ; assured me that
the American college, univ. etc. are farther gone than I (E.P.) think.
I have never objected to any man's mediocrity, it is the idiotic fear that a
certain type of mediocrity has in the presence of any form of the real. And
the terror of newspaper owners, profs, editors, etc. in the presence olidea.
I have documents stacked high, from men in most walks of life. Proved
over and over again. No intellectual life in the univs. No truth in the press.
Refusal to look at fact.
It is nonsense to talk about my being embittered. I've got so much plus
work going on that I have had difficulty in remembering what particular
infamy I wrote you about.
As for 'expatriated'? (Bunk). You know damn well the country
wouldn't feed me. The simple economic fact that if I had returned to
America I slid, have starved, and that to maintain anything like the stan-
dard of living, or indeed to live, in America from 191 8 onwards I shd. have
had to quadruple my earnings, i.e. it wd. have been impossible for me to
devote any time to my real work.
You subsidized drifters can talk. But can you, a man with a decent cul-
ture, lie down in peace with Nic Butler as titular head of the country's
intellectual life? The man who, apart from all his obvious grossness, has
sabotaged the Carnegie fund. Not one damn cent of the half million a year
that (it) costs the people has been spent on investigating the economic
causes of war. Do you like it? Will you look at it?
The author of Helen's underwear is the arbiter of American music. Tell
that to yr. talented brother.
What little life has been kept in American letters has been largely due to
a few men getting out of the muck and keeping the poor devils who
couldn't at least informed. And then when one did hand the American
34i
Rapallo
publishing world the chance to take over the lead from dying England, the
bastard wouldn't take it.
English edtr (p.c. arrived this A.M.) sic: 'Real hardship (sub-rosa) no-
body really capable of writing here ! '
'Help! America.' God damn it, look at the facts. What I have done
right down to this year. Got American authors printed abroad when the
foetid American publishing system &on't print 'em in America, because
the filthy money won't flow, because the profits to Judas aren't suffi-
ciently probable and tempting. If there were not a hundred American
writers younger than myself who are grateful to me for services rendered
you might have some grounds for talking about 'help' !
No, doc, it won't do. You ask anyone who has met me or any one of a
hundred correspondents about my being embittered. Disgust is one thing,
but letting it get into one's own private Anschauung is another.
For every lid you think I shd. tolerate, there are a hundred good guys
screwed down under that lid (whether in la vie intellectuelle or in the
accounting system).
You ain't so old but what you cd. wake up. And you are too respected
and respectable for it to be any real risk. They can't fire you now. Why the
hell don't you have a bit of real fun before you get tucked under?
Damn it all, I never did dislike you.
279: To Sarah Perkins Cope
Rapallo y 22 April
Dear Sarah: It is like a Murkn college to decide that Eliot is a critic (and
then not have The Criterion) — especially as his poetry is what matters.
I have corrected the final proofs of my ABC of Reading, and that may
save you part of yr. Mawrterdom.
I mentioned some books in Instigations. I wonder what is 'available'
and what you have read already. Try Browning's Sordello. Are you still
young enough to read ole Unci. William Yeats? Or at least to tell me how
it strikes the young and tender of yr. generation?
I don't know why you shd., at yr. time of life, take up all the ugliness
that the generations before you had to write in order to cure.
New sculptor loose on the roof, and marble dust dappertutto. Vide seal.
Get New Democracy which is the only contemporary paper in America.
We have got to clean up the economic mess; and your genera-
342
1934 — aetat 48
don has got to understand how much of life can be cured by a very simple
application of economic sense to reality (reality today being abundance
of material wealth), poverty being an anachronism and all the god damn
capitalist psychology being a disease that has eaten in thru every interstice
of the mind. Distorted the vision of us that are supposed to be furthest
from money. How much of capitalist literature can have a meaning in
1950, 1 don't know. No one now writing can do anything of real interest
unless they perform a few acts of mental hygiene. Mostly as simple as
brushing one's teeth or using iodine on a cut.
My generation needed R&ny de Gourmont. Yeats used to say I was
trying to provide a portable substitute for the British Museum. I think
Instigations was the university for people who were getting educated in
1920.
We ought to modernize the economic scene during the next three years,
and then stay civilized. Music up to Rapallo level, and a little good art and
letters.
I ought to know what you have already read. B. Constant's Adolphe,
Daphnis and Chloe. How can one know what the next generation will like?
There is one list of books in my How to Read and another in my ABC.
There are a few things out of print. Golding's translation of Ovid's
Metamorphoses, certainly . . . and being an institution of learning yr.
Eng. prof, will never have heard of it; though it was good enough for Wm,
Shakespear. And any dept. of English is a farce without it.
280: To John Drummond
Rapallo, 30 May
Dear D.: Re Anthl. of Exposures. Suggest you discuss it with
Orage. More likely to get it printed as a series in N.E. W. than in a volume
(or at any rate, than if you try it first as a collection). A.R.O. about off his
nutt with trouble in finding live copy.
Damn people wasting my time wanting information. Wish someone
would attack the museum. They try to blackmail foreigners
into giving them free copies; and absolutely on all living
authors. I don't think you will find first edtns. of Cantos there either. Just
the same as the peedling Tate Gallery refusing Epstein's Birds as a gift —
which mattered; and presumably buying his later tosh at high figure.
Theory of bugwash society: that writers and artists are not to be sus-
tained.
Egoist was Harriet Shaw Weaver, . Titular edtr. Dora
343
Rapallo
Marsden who wrote the front pages on 'philosophy' and left the rest free
to letters. As nearly as I remember, I got them to appoint Aldington sub-
edtr. and later got Eliot the job, though I remained unofficially an advisor
without stipend. I think the files will indicate what I was responsible for,
and at any rate I served as katalytic. H. W. deserves well of the nation and
never turned away anything good. Also the few articles she wrote were
full of good sense. She amply deserves Eliot's dedication of whichever
book it was.
No, of course the Museum hasn't The Little Rev. and they
will have hell's own delight of a time to get it now; and any
you can heap on 'em will be personally appreciated. Suggest you apply to
the Duckegg of Marlborough (as the publication of Joyce after Consuelo
subscribed promptly truncated my social contacts in ' them quarters.' Poor
dear couldn't have it in the house wiff her growing sons (aged, if I remem-
ber rightly, about 18 at the time). That's American refeenment fer yuh).
Of course, J.J. never saw proofs of either Eg. or L.R. Eg. always secre-
tive about circulation. Think it ended with 185 subscribers and I imagine
no newsstand or store sales.
I have L.R. here, but your bloke wd. have to see it on premises. I am
not trusting it inside a country run by unadulterated and
which stole 500 copies of the French edtn. of Ulysses and then blackmailed
the importer into silence. Said if he continued to complain about the theft
they wd. 'get him somehow,' meaning crab his further publication of any-
thing. That is the spirit of England, especially of Brit, licherchoor, the
Quarterly Review, Sir J. Swire, etc., the whole lot: Observer,
Richmond of Times, etc.
Nos. 1 and 2 of This Quarter can be consulted in Rapallo, but not very
interesting.
Despite The Egoist's having been necessary to print Joyce, W. Lewis,
Eliot and a lot of my stuff that Orage would not have in The New Age, I
wish the young wd. rally round New Eng. Weekly. Orage must be 60 by
now. Can't expect complete flexibility, and he has to concentrate on what
he understands. Nevertheless, much better than the new credit mags,
which are more tolerant of stray opinions. And while he is stubborn as a
mule, a little persistence usually makes him see the best of what he don't
follow, though he won't give way on the almost.
At any rate, he did more to feed me than anyone else in England, and I
wish anybody who esteems my existence wd. pay back whatever they feel
is due to its stalvarrdt sustainer. My gate receipts Nov. 1, 1914-15, were
42 quid 10 s. and Orage's 4 guineas a month thereafter wuz the sinews,
by gob the sinooz.
344
J 934 — aetat 48
281 j To Mary Barnard
Rapallo, 13 August
Dear M.B.: The Guggenheims have never been given to anyone recom-
mended by me, Eliot or W. C. Williams. One scholar said she got in not
because she cd. paint but because she had got recommends from college
profs. In no case wd. I again touch the muck heap. I mean I won't recom-
mend anyone. I wd. as soon shake hands with Hoover. But that is no
reason for your not having a shot at 'em. Any incompetent prof will rouse
their foetid inf. ex. less than a good writer.
Put up a sober scheme for the investigation of Greek metres and music.
Research in the Island of Crete or Athens museum for prehistoric indica-
tions of the 1/8 tone scale by the minotaur, Daedalus' invention of the pre-
jazz saw. Any god damn irrelevance you can think of, with soft note on the
creative urge.
The Ann Winslow, College Verse is O.K. as recommend to Gugg. Any
of their mutton-headed sponsors cd. probably get you in. H , etc.
Don't fer garzake mention me.
Have you heard from T. C. Wilson? I don't want to nominate poems
for his anthology, re which I am merely final arbiter between his American
and Drummond's English selections.
A mild velleity toward writing, and a pedantic interest in Greek scan-
sion, or research into Greek metres with an aim toward improvement of
modern verse. Or versification. Might just catch the heberew eye. But
don't breathe my satanic name. You are not unpubd, if you are in College
Verse, and ?? Poetry ox wherever. . . .
Ad interim. Will look at yr. mss. when I get time.
P.S. Wilson had some sort of prize at Michigan. He can prob. tell you
about alternatives to Gigg. and IoWAAAAA.
282: To Mary Barnard
Rapalby 13 August
Dear M.B.: Practical (or not) matters touched in this A.M.'s note.
Re mss. I think you have as good a chance as anyone of the young.
I don't know whether you have seen Active Anthology (Faber, oh damn
7/6 shillings, so I suppose prohibitive in the U.S. unless some HBerry ! ! !)
345
Rapallo
Routledge have pubd my ABC of Reading at 4/6 and the Yale Univ. are
doing an Americ. edtn. Apart from what you might get from those vols,
(the A.A. certainly not a model . . . but informative . . .) I don't know what
others of yr. age are doing. Can only give estimate of intrinsic, etc.
As you have got that far, I don't know what you can be told. Given the
contents, what more can be done?
Technically you can study music. And apart 5a, I think it is mainly a
question of what, not how.
There is a slight stiffness or old-fashionedness. . . . The language is still
literary ('beholds' and 'wenches' are not live speech). All of which is very
slight, in the given case, but cumulative . . J and damned hard to escape.
Landor's marmoreal??? Etc. Etc.
Re Gugg. make yr. Greek metre plan as impressive as possible. Throw
in a lot of technical terms: Sapphic, Alcaic, etc. (with the correct spellings,
etc.)
Rousselot is dead. I don't know if the College de France phonetics dept.
is going on with the phonoscopee 1 xperiments. However, that wd. give you
excuse to pass thru Paris en route to Greece (where I don't imagine there
is any real work to be done, but the Guggs. always have excuses for travel).
Do you want to send yr. stuff to Marianne Moore, with request for
criticism? From someone not so much in sympathy with the con-
tents.
I am sending the unpubd. ones to Eliot. He is slower than coal tarrr and
I don't suppose I shall get any action or answer out of him, but he is due
here in October, if, etc.
I still think the best mechanism for breaking up the stiffness and literary
idiom is a different metre, the god damn iambic magnetizes certain verbal
sequences. The lovely Mrs. Whatshername who died. What her name,
married Ben£t. Wylie (Eleanor) etc. Different rhythm texture. Or take
Helene Magaret — don't seem to go on. Don't worry about lightness. You
ain't an Amy Lowell. Shall the gazelle mimic the hippo. 'Be yerrsellf!!'
I've forgotten yr. age. But it's O.K.
I have all, I have, confound it, to forge pokers, to get economic good
and evil into verbal manifestation, not abstract, but so that the monetary
system is as concrete as fate and not an abstraction etc. ... Is all I can do. I
can't think out the answers for anyone else.
1 "... M. Rousselot . . . had made a machine for measuring the duration
of verbal components. A quill or tube held in the nostril, a less shaved quill or
other tube in the mouth, and your consonants signed as you spoke them.
M They return, One and by one, With fear, As half awakened each letter with
a double registration of quavering." Polite Essays, pp. 129-130
346
1934— aetat 48
I don't see any other occupation for you than work on metre, rhythm,
melodic line. And to set round watchin' and waitin'.
You are probably more abundant than such of the younger males of yr.
generation, as I know of, but then . . . what do I know about the compara-
tive dynamisms.
The definite vacancy is in melodic validity. There is definitely a place
open and waiting.
Nobody can do anything about their contents anyhow; it either is or
j sn 't._/—/
283: To Laurence Binyon
Rapalby 30 August
Dear L.B.: When one has finally done the job and found the mot juste, I
dare say violent language usually disappears. Rubens' technique (at least
in one painting about 4 ft. square) is not stupid. I dare say I damned him
for the whole groveling imbecility of French court life from the death of
Franjois Premier to the last fat slob that was guillotined. — / — /
And when one has the mot juste, one is finished with the subject; and
American magazines come round 20 years later to ask you to be paid for
recollecting it.
Nic. del Cossa is now, I believe, considered the chief responsible for the
Schifanoja frescoes. And I have since seen some Tura's corrupted by the
Rotterdam or gotterdam dutch, or tinges with hell smoke.
And my use of 'idiotic* is loose. You are quite right about that. Have
always been interested in intelligence, escaped the germy epoch of Freud
and am so bored with all lacks of intelletto that I haven't used any dis-
crimination when I have referred to 'em.
There is another essay in the new Faber vol. dealing with Guido's rela-
tions (to Eliz. Eng.). I will ask 'em to send it you (shd. be out in Sept.).
Also in ' Date Line,' the introd to the vol.
A lot of my prose scribbling is mostly: 'There digge!' Plus belief that
criticism shd. consume itself and disappear (as I think it mostly does in my
ABC of Reading).
Ballate and Canzoni mainly for music. Sonnets ceased, I think, to be for
music; hence ultimately a drug on market and defective in certain sensi-
bility. I have set a lot of Villon and a good deal of Guido (more of that
another time, or viva voce).
P.S. Power and speed to second Cantico.
Let's say Rubens' interests were limited; a lot of the life of the mind, and
a deal of the best of it, unknown in his entourage ?
347
Rapallo
284: To Mary Barnard
Rapallo •, 18 December
Dear Mary: I was certainly right in telling you to work on sapphics.
Metric work, your only rock to keep from being submerged in 'condi-
tions/ Canby's weekly flux, etc.
Keep at it.
Have a care against spondee too often for second foot. The tension
must be kept, and against the metric pattern struggle toward natural
speech. You haven't yet got sense of quantity. And if you had, it wd. be
something too easy to be worth wanting.
'I am rich' is as near as 'rich am I,' the long vowel makes the syllable
long, and a syllable that is open and easily sung long fits a long space, per-
haps better than a short vowel with heavy consonant load.
Sculptor* (plural) wd. perhaps be better language, and O.K. to end
strophe. 'I send forth ships' (well, I dunno, 'I send ships forth.' All those
syllables are long).
'Lai 9 , I am emphasizing, present impression is that metrically it is
your best to date.
'Lie adept. 9 Several adjectives don't seem to do much. What happens if
you remove 'courteous,' 'suave,' (gusto a second noun) 'No one,' for
'none.' 'to pass' for 'to the passing,' and 'dipping of 9 (ing and 0/useless
syllables; every syllable shd. have a reason for being there). — / — /
If you think well of any of these suggestions, please write direct to T. C.
Wilson and ask him to make 'em on the mss.
Am passing 16 poems for the anthol. Omitting everything already used
in College Vurrse. (Not sure, mebbe there are one or two more in ms.)
Drummond is looking over.
Anyhow, you're bein' the starr border and I hope you won't flop like
H. M , and apparently the B goil is a floppin' already, unless Wilson
has merely got a poor sample.
At any rate yr. in the runnin fer the star lady purrformer and the young
lads need a stronger parental hand than they want.
You go on chawin at them Sapphics, with an Alcaic strophe on Sun-
days. Remember the swat must strain against the duration now and
again, to maintain the tension. Can't have rocking horse Sapphics any
more than tu tum, iambs.
348
1934 — aetat 49
*85:ToW. H. D. Rouse
RapaIIo y 30 December
Dear Dr. Rouse: I did not suspect you of wanting the advertisement, but
to make up for American defects one has to participate in the annoying
virtues of one's tribe. It is barbarous, but there it is. If a thing is good, the
bdy. murkn wants to do something about it (often before he quite knows
what it is).
The border line between 'gee whizz' and Milton's tumified dialect must
exist. (Dante, in De Volgari Floquio, seems to have thought of a good
many particulars of the problem.)
I must have been obscure if you thought it was long words in the Greek
that bothered me. I may feel a gap between Homer and the dramatists
greater than that which really exists.
Negroes in America love polysyllables and used to assemble most mar-
velous collections of unexpected syllables.
I have now read the 'Adventures' straight through with gt. enjoyment,
and clearer view of what you were doing. I don't know whether my actual
notes on minutiae wd. interest you or not? If so, I can send up the volume.
Or summarize, as you like.
I hope The New English Weekly will invite you to say something about
the campaign for live teaching of Greek and Latin. That wd. come better
from you than from me.
There are more questions in my head than I can set down with any
apparent coherence.
Along with direct teaching of the language, is there any attempt to teach
real history? ' Roman mortgages 6%, in Bithinya 12%/
I have been for two years in a boil of fury with the dominant usury that
impedes every human act, that keeps good books out of print, and
pejorates everything.
Need for terminology, for articulation of terminology (for control of
language). Decadence of thought, due to lack of observation of words.
English contempt of literature and all the arts and 50 years of worse con-
tempt in the U.S.A. It all goes into the kettle, and the broth is thin. It may
be an illusion that the Middle Ages tried to define their terminology. Cer-
tainly the last half century.did not.
Have you any explanation for the obsolescence and decline of Gk. and
Lat. studies after, let us say, the Napoleonic wars?
Or, taking it from another angle, do you see in Brit, education during
349
Rapallo
your time a reason why the country tolerates a governing class that can't
see that: Work is not a commodity. Money is not a commodity. The state
has credit. The increment of association is not usury?
Until Latin teaching faces the economic fact in Latin history, it may as
well leave out history. History without econ. is just gibberish. My genera-
tion was brought up in black ignorance. Wherever one looks — printing,
publishing, schooling — the black hand of the banker blots out the sun. An
enlivening of classic study can come and come very quickly if the teachers
will try to understand the question of the new tables. * There digge.' We
have been taught sham history, a vomit.
What I am trying to get at is, given the economic inferno that one has
been through, trying to teach an elite and the present distracted writer
cursed for every allusion he ever made to Greek or Latin, surrounded by
people who complain that they can't ' understand ' a passage, for the simple
reason that something Greek or Latin is mentioned.
Granted the bulk of the sabotage and obstruction is economic and
nothing else, there is the fact to be faced that the modern world has lost a
kind of contact with and love for the classics which it had, not only in the
1 8th Century and in the Renaissance (part snobism), but throughout the
Middle Ages, when in one sense it knew much less.
And life is impoverished thereby.
'The truth makes its own style.' But education has been so rotten at the
core, so falsified that every learning has fallen into contempt. {Latin
Teaching No. 2, June 1934) Mr. C seems to me both an idiot and liar
(speaking of frankness). His kind of parroting seems to me exactly what
does keep people from studying the classics and keeps school boys from
believing what teachers tell 'em. Meaning in more curial style, that with
that sort of animal teaching and with that kind of mind eternally eligible
for jobs in schools, one must have some communication of the classics to
living man that is independent of schools.
Some auxiliary means of teaching the intelligent boys who, being
interested in locomotives at the age of 10, find C insufferable but are
not of necessity hermetically sealed against literature at 19 or 30.
Have I finally got round to my plea: for some means of communicating
the classics to the great mass of people, by no means foreordained to eter-
nal darkness, who weren't taught Greek in infancy?
Eliot remarked of G. Murry (or however he spells it): 'He has erected
between Euripides and the reader a barrier more impassable than the
Greek language.'
The 'Adventures' will be given to half a dozen people whose interest I
have aroused in the Odyssey and been unable to slake, as they are all too
35°
x 934 — aecat 49
sensitive to read the tushery provided by 'adorned' translations, though
they might stick a couple of pages of Pope and a dozen or so of Chapman.
Can you augment it? Can you keep the drive of the narration and yet
put back some of what you have skipped ? What happens if you go through
it again, making as straight a tale for adults?
I take it the book of my essays to which you refer (cursed literary sen-
tence) is Make It New. I wonder if you have seen my try at a text book
(ABC of Reading) ? Or whether it wd. infuriate you if you did ?
Coming back to your letter (it is plain I have not wanted to be in
England for years, but I would now like to be within talking distance)
about strong words and small children, I wonder if in natural state they are
shocked ... or only after having used the words themselves and (been)
reproved for it. . . .
What you say about Greeks in part Italian today. Small child at Sir-
mione saying 'ci sono anche piu depositi.' Someone had dug into a few
Lombard graves and left 'em open.
As to plain words: I wonder if it isn't part of writer's duty to clean them.
A beastly writer can and often does defile his whole vocabulary, without
least violence to correct syntax.
On page 6 you have the node. All real narrative writing (the secret of
Edgar Wallace, to emerge from your (presumable) groves) is great
modesty. As long as the narrator can keep his mind on his story and not
think about his waistcoat or whiskers.
'Spade' for gelded she-dog gives place to 'bitch,' which oughtn't to be
any worse than mare, cat, female of Tom-cat or gatto maoulador, and so
forth. Cock can not be mentioned in America. All Americans are shocked
by the English use of it to designate male chicken and stay so until they
have been some time in Europe (at any rate all pre-prohibition Ameri-
cans).
From my first outpour. To repeat that about Binyon: do you know
him? He needs you. I need yr. criticism more than you do mine. Nobody
has taught me anything about writing since Thomas Hardy died. More's
the pity.
35 «
I93£
286: To Henry Swabey
[postcard]
Rapallo, 24 January
You are quite right on the Atys element in all Anglo-Educ.
Ref. my Cavalcanti Rime (partially reprinted in Make It New). Might note
also that New English Weekly is giving more space to letushope live writ-
ing as such. At any rate, Eliot and I prob. going into some sort of advisory
board (whether publicly or unpublicly).
Want new blood. Also I want (privately) news of state of opinion, etc.,
in let us say Durham (which is a place like another). Being out here, I have
more time to reflect on such items than blokes in an office can. Don't
worry about what you have been told you ought to think, but spill out
what you do think and you may serve me as an extra eye. I need about 400.
Also need counterweight; letters to N.E.W. office, to counteract resis-
tance of the hang-backers. Trying for W. H. D. Rouse, Ogden, etc. In
fact, want all the live minds. Don't worry about what I know; take a
chance on my not knowing everything. Will do me no harm to hear the
same news twice. Suggestions as to what hornets' nest thinks a lit. weeklv
(with economic drive) ought to be and do.
287: To E. E. Cummings
Rapalby 25 January
Waal; my deah Estlin an consort: You coitunly are a comfort inna woild
thet is so likely to go aphonik. An wot with this bootshaped pennyinsula
sufferin from premature bureaucracy ANYhow ! ! And we alius were having
such a nice quiet revolution (continual); all but the local hill-habitators
who are all out and bigod they won't have any more cow if they ain't got
freedumb to leave tubercules in the milk.
And so forth. Anyhow, the old line is beginnin to notice the new boys
35*
1935 — aetat 49
in 40 lire neckties and a forrinoffice manner. And I hope it busts some-
where else, so'z the boss can git on wiff it.
Anyhow, the poems is sent to Lunnon espresso with a prayer to print all
that can be print without pinching English printers, libitty-tea law being
az iz.
England needs you. I am afraid my popular style is rhetorical, just
broad. Not very pointed.
To R (M to England): Ye ha cad canny on food and drink
The bairns can na eat your blather ',
Youdbuggar a horse for saxpence
Or sell up your dyin* father.
Simple old-fashioned songs, I can no other. And anyhow, they wd. pass
over the head of the pubulace. Note 'saxpence,' Lowland Scots for 'a
tanner.'
In any case remember I'm oldern you are.
As for new dollar substitutes, old tradition dies hard. I saw one yester
week hung on pine tree by the sea board. Such is the Mediterranean spirit.
And so forf.
288: To C. K. Ogden
Rapalloy 28 January
— . m Instead of sending me Basic Eng. and ABC you have sent
me a mass of light licherachoor with such repulsive titles as Carl and Anna
havva banYana.
You c'mon hellup me galvanize New Eng. Weekly.
Ad interim, I have writ to two High and Mighty Romans.
You might send a bit of propaganda to Ct. Galazzo Ciano, under
sec. for Press; and Carlo Delcroix, himself; or Dr. Monotti, edtr. of
Vittoria, . Monotti works just under Delcroix and wd. show
him the stuff. With De Vechii at Ministry of Education there wd. be
more chance of action than with some aesthetic mossback, sentimental-
izing over Dela Crusca. Also Dr. Hugo Fack (GeselFs pubr.)
is good ground and I have already interested him.
I can't rewrite all Fenollosa's essay which is the most important item on
my list of what you don't know.
z 35)
Rapallo
Re Frobenius and Bruhl. Intelligence is so b — fn rare that when one
onct in 10 years, finds traces of it, the fact shd. cause joy. Bruhl just a pro*
fessor. Frobenius thinks. Both of 'em wd. enrich sis What's-her-name's
culture and enlighten her a lot more than some of the 47 varieties of bone-
head whom she does mention.
I proposed starting a nice lively heresy, to efFek, that gimme 50 more
words and I can make Basic into a real licherary and mule-drivin' lan-
guage, capable of bio win Freud to hell and gettin' a team from Soap Gulch
over the Hogback. You watch ole Ez do a basic Canto. — / — /
289: To Arnold Gingrich
Rapalby 30 January
Private. Dear Arnold: — / — / To run The Noo Yorker gaga you need
Kumrad Kumminkz. Vide my New Eng. Weekly article. The Kumrad has
70 poems thet nobuddy loves. And it za shyme he has to send 'em out of
the country. Not that I am sure London will print 'em. But still, the cachet.
To git the younger pubk there iz nuthin like Kumrad Kumminkz. I mean
you got Hem's lots. Cummin'sh has the others. And where t'hell is ole
WillWallrussWillyams?
Give my regards to hofF, I shur like his drawin' wot hazza lot the mugs
ain't agoin' ter see. That boy can put the lines right where they beelong.
Waal, damm if I can see the diff between Hem tellin the bastids to look
at the etchings and me tellin 'em to look at the skullpschoor. But so iz it. I
admit when they look at them nice old-fashioned engravins they can see a
park bench anna brothel, and besides the bloke iz in jail.
A couple of bawdy songs from father Eliot wdn't go bad with the elec-
torate. I see he has written a play. Mebbe a few lyrics sech az:
When I was only a slip of a girl
Wot couldn't eat more'n a couple of chops . . .
or of course 'Bolo,' which I am afraid his religion won't now let him
print. Well thet wdn't do fer yr. family maggerzeen nohow.
But still he might supplement Rascoe, or etc.
And what iz gone wrong with McAlmon? The kid just playin* the fool,
or wotever? Too bad some of his best have been printed, though hardly
more than privately printed. I hope he ain't gone plumb to hell.
354
1935 — aetat 49
290: To C. K. Ogden
Rapalloy 7 February
ad interim. Respected Og: Compliments on 'Idola Fori,' and up to p. 48
where I now am (rising for an interval, a breath, etc.). I shall perform due
salaams, etc. publicly. After a shot at sis what's her name, and commenda-
tion of Blondel.
I have yet to see that Richards is much use. (Willing to learn, but no
need of concealing doubts now present.)
Have duly noted refs to Lev-Bruhl and Leibnitz on what he didn't know
about ideogram.
Got to have you in N.E. W. if I am to keep them at it.
I take it my note on Basic will be in issue for 14th. If you see any way
that my criticism can be more constructive than I am likely to make it,
don't be backward about suggesting it, either in print or privately. I shall
try to make it clear that I am all for building, mostly on yr. foundation.
Eng. print so smeared with personal sniping and clique politics that any
definition of limitations or any definition whatever is likely to be taken as
'ami-.'
So far (provisional estimate), Richards started and more or less lay down
on you. Blondel lectured and is serious character,
For the rest, you have done yr. damndest with the personnel you cd.
find.
I shd. be grateful for notice of any serious thought in Eng. outside
Psyche group. . . . Had you been possessed of my apostolic fury, you cd.
have 'sold' me some of it five years ago when I was trying to prod you
into pubng Eng. edtn of Fr. Fiorentino. I still doubt if (as pedagogy, etc.)
there is any Eng. introd. to history of philos. as clear as F.F. up to Leib-
nitz, or wherever the first edtn stopped. And maintain my suspicion that
after Leib we have either trype or derivatives from material science
(roughly speaking) . . . nothing a man with any real brain cdn't do better
with half an hour's thinking than with mucking around with printed
material, until you did yr. job of chucking out useless verbiage.
As Frobenius functions, I consider him interesting. Also I return to my
emphasis on Fenollosa's essay, neither of which elements I have yet found
in the Ortho. pubctns. I can't see 'em as destroying or invalidating, but
definitely as augmentive.
I shd. also appreciate confidence of list of serious characters in England,
if any known to you. My own, outside the field of economics, is very short.
355
Rapallo
291: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, 22 February
Dear Dr. Rouse: A week or ten days ago I made some notes on yr. first
book but did not send them because I thought:
I. Most important thing is that you finish the new translation in your
own way and own spirit, uncontaminated.
II. In any poem of length the first essential is the narrative flow. My
sticking and probings might bother you.
Now Mairet writes me he has written you saying he thinks he can use
the stuff nowy about a page a week, starting next month (which I suppose
means March).
I am therefore sending you the ms. sep. cov. registered.
292: To E. E. Cummings
Rapallo, February
My dear Estlin: Don't be more of a fool than nature has made you. Poor
Mairet is doin' his damndest and can't risk suppression. England wd. cer-
tainly stop the paper the minute it . But once past the initial
difficulty and once you get a real toe hold in that funny, o very, country,
I don't think you wd. have difficulty in away to yr.
content. In between book covers; and in de lookx editions. Ref to the Rev.
Arnaut Daniel on the value of fast movers who like 'em slow (male as
opposed to Mae's view).
I am, concretely, and without hyperesthesia, aimin at an Eng. edtn of
Eimi. And I think a delayed is worth that. (And the poem as
pore Mairet did it, still retained quite a good deal of pleasure for the
reader. . . . )
May I say to the rev. etc. and so forth E.E.C. as has been said to me
(even thru years of greater etc. so to speak gulf stream etc.): you are not
known in England. However bad for yr. feelings, this means that you
ain't known either much or enough. Graves' bloomsbugg ain't enough.
Tho I admit the company of bro. hoff will be more entertainin' than that
of the prospective Ogden and whatever other bloody brits one can scare
together, still it wd. be even more entertainin to bring hoff and the Arch-
bishop together. Not that his Left Reverence has yet N.E. Wa\
35«
1935 — aetat 49
Why don't them buzzards in Noo Yok play bro Tibor Serly's muzik?
Stokowsky keeps promising, and then Tibor has to come here or go to
Budapesth for concerts (hand made) or orchestrated.
At any rate buggar the castration complex. Mairet, Nott, Newsome
have not got it. It is a plain question of the cop on the corner and a shut
down of the works.
Whoa down yew skittish thoroughbred . . . and wait fer the steam roller
to pass.
If we had Doug divedends we could print what we like when we got ready.
This here in'erest in soshul credit ain't confined to pertatoes.
293:ToW.H.D. Rouse
Rapallo, February
Dear Dr. Rouse: To come down to trifles, or perhaps they aren't. Certain
words seem to me 'literary,' no longer living, no longer used in speech as I
heard it during my 12 years in England. Never have I heard the word
'flight' spoken, though one reads it in detective stories.
Poor old Upward had a lot to say about Athene's eyes, connecting them
with her owl and with olive trees. The property of the glaux, and olive
leaf, to shine and then not to shine, 'glint' rather than shine. Certainly a
more living word if one lives among olive yards.
I wonder if those blighters have sent you my XXX, or if they are wait-
ing for the new 31/41....
Do we say 'courteous,' or do we say people have 'good' or 'nice'
manners?
' Kind sir, will you be angry' seems to me fairy tale. ' Pardon me, sir, but
I hope you won't be offended '. . . .
Is it English or American to say 'Is it yr. first visit' or 'Is this yr. first
visit'?
I don't know that one needs keep 'Allow me to inform you' where the
next phrase is clear, and the tone of voice carries the meaning (178).
'Oh well' not 'Ah well.'
I don't see that one translates by leaving in unnecessary words; that is,
words not necessary to the meaning of the whole passage, any whole pass-
age. An author uses a certain number of Hank words for the timing, the
movement, etc., to make his work sound like natural speech. I believe one
shd. check up all that verbiage as say 4% blanks, to be used where and
357
Rapallo
when wanted in the translation, but perhaps never, or at any rate not
usually where the original author has used them.
Alas, as you are writing English, you can't call them there bloody gal-
lants, * cake-eaters' or 'lizards/ 'dudes/ 'gigolos,' 'young scum' (I sup-
pose my native tongue is still more flexible than English: 'good for
nothing young sprigs,' 'fils k papa,' 'spooners,' 'saps').
P. 13. A. Won't all the meaning go into: 'And put twenty oarsmen into
the best ship you can find.'
When I suggested your doing a translation with all the meaning, I
didn't mean merely to put back words, or translations for words.
I thought that passage about Odysseus on the mast, under the cliffs, has
more boy scout craft than you gave it. I thought the situation of Mercury
and Calypso has more inside it.
???
'And Antinous Eupertheson answered: "Telemachus has apparently
spoken with one of the gods, and learned a great deal of rhetoric. I hope he
will inherit the throne of his fathers in Ithaca." '
No use: I can't fit my sentences into your cadence, but the only way I
can express what I am driving at is to put down some sort of scaffolding.
'"Much as the idea may annoy you, I wd. accept it," said Telemachus.
"There's no harm in being a king. Kings accumulate property, and are
greatly respected. There are other Greek kings, one of them, a young one
or even an old one might succeed the noble Odysseus, if Odysseus were
dead, but in that case I shd. at least be master in my own house." '
I wonder if the word 'canny' (kenn?) wdn't be a useful word here and
there.
The theioio: not sure you don't shock me for a change.
What about Zeus saying: ' How can I forget Odysseus, the fellow is one
of us,' or 'How can I forget Odysseus, who is one of us, one of our own
kind,' or 'almost one of us.'
'A man with a mind like that comes near to godhead'; 'when a man's
got a mind like that even the gods respect him' (' can respect').
294: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo, 3 March
Dear Swabey: Having wasted postage in endeavour to save it, mind begins
to function.
Have noted young Engmn waste time in not getting started; as cf.
Americans or Latins. Have seen Englanders footlin round at age of 32,
358
J 935 — aetat 49
having graduated at Oxon, and not knowin' what they mean to do. Don't
matter much what job a man learns, so long as he learns it; then if he wants
to change, he can do something different and do it well.
Plenty use for man now who goes into Church with eyes open. Say,
having read Trollope's The Warden and knowing what he is up against.
Church organization: any man patient enough to go into it, bear it, and
use it cd. be of great use to his country.
This apropos yr. wanting Troubadours, but not indicating if you mean
to use study directly to make your own metric, or just from general inter-
est in kulchoor.
I strongly suggest you make a study of ecclesiastical money in England.
Not numismatism; but to know what the Church issued, under what regu-
lations; ratio metal value to currency value; whether Bracteates issued;
paper, if any. When, if ever, did usury cease to be mortal sin? It still is in
Roman and must be in Anglo-Cat. Let in for greed and forgotten from
ignorance, probably. A start for a young man, and his ultimate reach often
matter of knowing and being known by intelligent people soon enough.
'We* need a good study of church money, bishop's powers, etc. Most
suitable study for young cleric. Eccl. Soup-eriors wd. have to approve . . .
or look fools. Durham ideal spot to start work.
You understand, general study of any large subject is no good. But you
start any specific line, and as no one has sorted it out, you are bound to
gather a lot of general information and prob. remember the live parts of it,
as you never wd. if you were just studying history or ecclesiastical hist.
I imag. there is plenty of stuff pubd. re Vatican coinage. But like as not
no coherent study of English bishops'. Whole tenor of the acts; theories
on which; morals or theologies on which they issued circulating medium.
In fact, a way to meet all yr. elders who are worth knowing.
I believe Calvin was the black devil, but no means of finding specific
passages at this distance from reference library.
295: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapalloy 18 March
N O NO ! Doc: Here you are backslidin' on all your highly respectable
principles and slinging in licherary langwidg and puttin' yer sentences all
out of whack.
'Odysseus' boy jumped out of bed as rednailed etc. appeared thru the
dawn mist,' or whatever; and if he reached for his six-shooter before
359
Rapallo
puttin* on his boots, that is a point to be made, as highly illustrative of the
era. A guards officer wdn't. But I reckon in Idaho in the 8o's Blue Dick or
Curly might have. And for his feet, they ought to be well-kept, or elegant
or patrician otherwise they slide into book-talk.
Tain't what a man sez, but wot he means that the traducer has got to
bring over. The implication of the word.
As fer them feet, the blighter had been usin cold cream, the bloomin'
Bloomsburry knut ! !
I will discuss eagles with my venerable parent, as he remembers when*
an Injun brought old Abe into Chippewa. That eagle went all thru the
Civil War and is supposed to have squawked above battles and come home
with the regiment and been stuffed and then burnt when the Wisconsin
capital burned.
What about magic and augury and luck-finding eagle feather? I am
bone ignorant of the subject, but have vague feeling that something or
other, etc. . . .
I think the openings of the books need especial care. This first page of
book two is bad. I mean it is just translation of words, without your
imagining the scene and event enough^ and without attending to the
English idiom. The 'THOKOS,' I suppose central chair, if more than
one; king's chair.
People have been trying to translate this for 400 years. Can't be done
easy. Very definite sense: Telemachus growing up and asserting himself.
It is the vividness and rapidity of narration, three little scenes, all alive.
That is writing. I just don't think you've yet got it. At any rate I'd like to
see a 'rewrite' as if you didn't know the words of the original and were
telling what happened.
Excuse this firmness, but hang it, anything else wd. be waste of both our
time.
296: To T. S. Eliot
Rapalhy 28 March
KIYRypes ! ! I keep on readin at this Morterarium. Waaal, I suppose it is a
just estimate of the mortician's parlour which is England. Wd. take me six
weeks to weed out a M the assinine statements. It wd. be nice if you wd.
reserve say 4 pages per issue to tell the reader honestly what is fit to read.
Hen. Miller having done presumably the only book a man cd. read for
pleasure and if not out Ulyssesing Joyce at least being infinitely more part
360
1935 — aetat 49
of permanent literature than such 1/2 masted slime as the weakminded 9
W. . . • female, etc, my note on Hank ain't there.
However, gor ferbidd that I speak modest ever again about anything I
find fit to recommend. If you print Brid. you can print Bunting's Firdusi,
which certainly is good enou(bloody)gh fer 'em.
Re translating ole Rouse is getting stubborn, won't pay any attention to
Aurora's manicuring or Telemachus' feet. Damn. And he might have been
useful stimulus both to Bunt, and Bin. — / — /
Song fer the Muses' Garden
Ei Po and Possum
Have picked all the blossom^
Let all the others
Run back to their mothers
Fer a boyes bes friend i^ hi{ (Edipus^
A boy's best friend is his QEdipus.
A li'l hard on Brid. and Co., tryin so hard, but still true enough to be
stingy. Krypes, young England led by an udder. Madge who started ex-
treme (ne c'est pas) doing the Bloomsbury bend. Contradicting what he
has just said re Hazlitt, Cobbett fer the sake of a prospective 9/ and six
pence.
Waal, anyhow, I have read mos' ov yr. muggyzeen fer onct and wish I
cd. git at the bastids with a acid cleaner. I'm not being merely skittish and
deskruktiv. Mairet is the only English contributor I can read with respect,
(Oh well; the Binbin is about up to Browning's average verse, that's
trans.) I mean among the blokes that are explaining something or crizisin'.
Nickerson is an ass.
Read, as usual. All the damn brits got a layer of suet three inches thick
over their wits.
On whole purty high average for a Lunnon wyper.
297: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, 17 April
I don't know that I have been clear enough re recurrable epithets— either
to be simple and natural so that repeat don't worry one, or else strange and
part of definite intended stylization.
Glauxy owl, totem or symbolic bird (gods connected with the divine
361
Rapallo
animals, as stupid bitch Hera has her bull eyes), glare-eyed, owl-eyed
Athena.
The Apollo at Villa Giulia gives tip to Mediterranean gods; startling,
sudden, none of that washy late stuff done by sculpting slave models, nor
afternoon-tea Xtian piety. Gods tricky as nature.
'Wine dark* I shd. accept. It is outside northern belief, but tells some-
thing about Mediterranean water that has to be seen.
Blond Menelaus: small dark Pelasgians or Mediterraneans still believe in
cuckolding large Nordic fatheads. Cucufier un anglais, etc. At any rate, he
has blond temperament, not redhead but note that as language you can
repeat carrot-top, sorrel-top, reddy, whereas hair colours sound literary.
As black-headed, etc.
The Nordic Menelaus. As to character of Odysseus. Anything but the
bright little Rollo of Chamber's Journal brought up on Sam Smiles. Born
un po* misero, don't want to go to war, little runt who finally has to do all
the hard work, gets all Don Juan's chances with the ladies and can't really
enjoy 'em. Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa. Always some fly in the ointment, last
to volunteer on stiff jobs.
298: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapalloy April
Dear Dr. Rouse: Sorry, but I am afraid I think the start of V. just plain
damn bad. Careless, frivolous. Missed opportunities all over it.
Let's list the aims:
1. Real speech in the English version.
2. Fidelity to the original
a. meaning
b. atmosphere
No need of keeping verbal literality for phrases which sing and run
naturally in the original. But, the THEOIO is strong magic.
The Argicide, Hermes, carried past, the movement with the wind
takes the god into nature. It is raw cut of concrete reality combined with
the tremendous energy, the contact with the natural force. The reality that
becomes mere pompous rhetoric in Milton. The miracle of Homer is that
great poesy is everywhere latent and that the literary finish is up to Henry
James'.
362.
1935 — aetat 49
I think I have already mentioned to you, or at any rate printed, Dazzi's
surprise at the modernity of Cavalcanti. * What, paroles en liberty ! '
I come back to my first opinion re the way to get the job done, namely
that you shd. run on, in your own way, to the end and then go back and
look more carefully at the meaning of each let us say phrase (not word) of
the original.
I simply don't believe than any man could do the masterwork that a
definitive English Odyssey should be at the speed you are going.
Who makes the living line must sweat, be gheez !
I appear to be the last living Rhadmanthus, Turco the Terrible and the
only fool left on earth who calls down the mighty from their seats (and
then watches 'em clinging to the tacks in the upholstery).
Process usually conducted in taciturn aloofness . . . indicated in cessa-
tion of correspondence.
Then I hear N. Angell is weeping in public that I birched him. (Evi-
dence not yet to hand.)
299: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, 23 May
Dear Dr. R.: Yes, keep on sending it and don't worry about my time.
What else have I ? And what is money good for but to save time ?
I can't translate the Odyssey myself.
A. Am on a job (or perhaps two or three) that needs all the brains I've
got.
B. Too god damn iggurunt of Greek.
C. When I do sink into the Greek, what I dig up is too concentrative;
I don't see how to get unity of the whole.
I suspect neither Dante nor Homer had the kind of boring 'unity* of
surface that we take to be characteristic of Pope, Racine, Corneille.
The Nekuia shouts aloud that it is older than the rest, all that island,
Cretan, etc., hinter-time, that is not Praxiteles, not Athens of Pericles, but
Odysseus.
I keep nagging you, because a trans, of the Odyssey seems to me so enor-
mous an undertaking, and the requirements include all the possible mas-
teries of English.
A best-selling novelist said apropos my Propertius that he (the novelist)
couldn't do anything like that, 'I got no depth. 9 When one starts to praise
3*3
Rapallo
the Odyssey, very hard not to get rhetorical. The deep is so deep, like clear
fathoms down.
Para thina poluphloisboio thalasses: the turn of the wave and the scutter
of receding pebbles.
Years' work to get that. Best I have been able to do is cross cut in
Mauberley, led up to:
. . . imaginary
Audition of the phantasmal sea-surge
which is totally different, and a different movement of the water, and
inferior.
Hell ! There is work work work all over the job.
The first essential is the narrative movement, forward, not blocking the
road as Chapman does. Everything that stops the reader must go, be cut
out. And then everything that holds the mind, long after the reading, i.e.,
as much as is humanly possible, must be clamped back on the moving
prose. It is enough to break six men's backs, and if you hadn't been there in
a sailing boat, I shd. lie down and surrender. . . . — / — /
300: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, 6 June
Dear Dr. Rouse: — / — / 1 thought I had given plenary approval to Nanny
and all yr. country idiom, any real speech.
Card just reed. Possibly you are Greek enough to take complete
cynicism as part of divine equipment and that I am so Xtian that a lying
god tickles my funny bone.
You a goddess ask of me who am a god,
Nevertheless I will tell you the truth.
Goddess wd. know anyhow, so no use the habitual mendacity, put as
many folds on it as you like.
Pickthall, who knows his Near East, said veracity is only valued where
people are in a hurry and set value on quickness.
13/101*
The chief impression in reading Homer is freshness. Whether illusion
or not, this is the classic quality. 3000 years old and stilly?^. A trans, that
misses that is bad. Must get new combinations of words. I can't recall
364
1935 — aetat 49
' patient protagonist * as occurring in English. I use this as example. A trans,
of meaning. I repeat Dazzi's scandal re Cavalcanti using 'paroles en
liberty ' and also wonder about yEschylus and syntax, whether editors
haven't tried to put back too much.
Dear W.H.D.R.: Press of work and disgust with the abysmal filth of the
world as piled up in evidence on my desk by the Daily Post has kept me
off this job and I go on a trip next week.
A very sensitive American writer (undergrad) here present has gone
thru yr. ms. He is getting ready to write good novels. Last night he
objected at first glance that yr. ms. was full of classroom phrases, and
hopelesty and why did I think, etc., etc.
301: To Harriet Monroe
Venice, 13 August
Editress Poetry: In the interest of truth affecting others, I ask correction of
the most flagrantly and blatantly mendacious statement in G 's
August note: 'Like Douglas he ignores the fact that labour is an integral
factor in the denomination of money values.'
This is crass stupidity on G 's part. The 'cultural heritage' is the
accumulated fruit of labour, mental and physical.
The item in my volitionist statements beginning 'If money is considered
as a certificate of work done' ought in itself be enough to show that
G either does not want to learn anything, or is incapable of so doing.
The term Arbeitswert on the immortal issue of Woergl notes would also
indicate a similar perception of a standard of value to have been in the con-
sciousness of the Gesellite protagonist. Not of course that I accuse
G of wanting to give a fair and honest statement of my economics.
He joins the series of nitwits who since the autumn of 1909 have tried to
turn the clock backward in dealing with my chronology.
Considering the anti-Fascist slogans of the Green Shirts in England,
Mr. G also shows himself bolchevikly ignorant of the Social Credit
Movement. Which is what one expects of him.
5<*5
Rapallo
302: To John Cournos
Rapallo, 25 September
Dear Cournos: Are you in touch with any of these Rhooshun blokes you
write about in Criterion} As there is no way of getting one grain of sense
into Communists oaf side Russia, would there be any way of inducing any
Rhoosian intelligentsia to consider Douglas and Gesell? Especially Doug,
as a phase of Communism suited to countries already in a higher state of
technical development than their own. Converging movements. Doug's
distribution effective for technological phase whereas Russia started in
agricultural condition.
Gesell providing the great implement for breaking grip of finance.
Allow for conspiracy of bankers and the new 7% Russian loan. But get the
idea to some decent bloke (if any exists). The only real one I ever met was
O.K., but all American Communists are, as far as I can discover, absolute
boneheads, tinhorn repeaters.
I note Mr. Gingrich has yielded. If you can find out anything that wd.
be useful to me re that locality, do so.
303: To Basil Bunting
Rapallo, December
— / — / The poet's job is to define and yet again define till the detail of sur-
face is in accord with the root in justice. (Rot) to submit to the transient.
.But poetry does not consist of the cowardice which refuses to analyse the
^transient, which refuses to see it.
The specialized thinking has to be done or literature dies and stinks.
Choice of the field where that specialized analysis is made has a percentage
of relevance. In no case can constipation of thought, even in the detail,
make for good writing. Lucidity. — / — /
3<*
1936
304: To James Laughlin
Rapalby (. ; 5 )January
No real literature will come out of people who are trying to preserve a
blind spot. That goes equally for ivory tower aesthetes, anti-propagandists
and communists who refuse to think: Communize the product.
Dear Jas: I suggest, in order not to over balance yr. pages with Ez, you
take to using a brief like the above in most issues. In black letter if you
think advisable. You can preach on same text when/if you want to.
I want information re what papers exist. Cur. Controversy I haven't seen.
But I want a list of papers. Does the existence of Herald Tribune 'This
Week' imply that 'Books' no longer bubbles?
Also if I gitta choinulist's ticket, lemme know what cheap hotelz iz in
N.Y. where you don't git bumped off by gunmen.
The Kumrad, Mr. E. E. Cummings, i\ back . You better see
him. He wd. prob. sacrifice one of his bright inimitable but with difficulty
saleable verses to New Democracy. Also as Frobenius haz bin interjuiced
to Havid, the Advocate might be ripe for a bit of Joe Gould's Oral History.
Or N. Dem. get a good bit.
Waal, I heerd the Murder in the Cafedrawl on the radio lass' night. Oh
them cawkney woices, My Krissz, them cawkney woices. Mzzr Shakzpeer
still retains his posishun. I stuck it fer a while, wot wifF the weepin and
wailin. And Mr. Joyce the greatest forcemeat since Gertie. And wot iz
bekum of Wyndham !
My Krrize them cawkney voyces !
305: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo, 26 March
Dear Swabey: As far as page 22. Bishops' money very interesting, and what
a louse Calvin was. A pimp, not even a pornoWkos. I shall take steps
toward noise toward hope of getting some of it printed.
367
Rapallo
i. My 'Churrrch of Rrrome' article is good because my archivescovo
went through it, 'Saevos raffrenare equos.' Not to change ideas, but effec-
tively showing that I had dragged in several irrelevant remarks and that
after all a man needn't try to say everything in one article. Article thence
improved by omitting irrelevant sentences. I pass on this ecclesiastical
wisdom. Latin mind a great comfort.
1. 1 suggest you cut irrelevant remarks on cinema; and stick to money.
Though you might leave the remark on 'better he had accepted fornica-
tion' or whatever it was. Don't try to write a sermon while doing a differ-
ent job. There'll be plenty of Sundays later.
II. Sort out Calvinsim from Church of England. Calvin is about
100% , but you shd. for teleological pragmatism (??) get the
Church of England on the right side of aequitas as far as possible. Show
that the bastards who are pro-usury are against at least some decent
Anglican authors. That can be done by inserting a couple of paragraphs.
Calvin (? surely never part of England's religion?) haeraesiarchus
putridissimus, etc. But on the other hand, the respectable Anglicans,
Rogers, Andrewes (whom Eliot dare not disagree with), etc. I suspect
Inge and Ingram are Calvinists and unfrockable. Let the bug-headed ape
of cleanse his own brothel, etc. (Language to be softened
before transmitted to the lowly and profane layman.)
Tithes don't really come in. They are a dividend (not a fixed rate, I
think) paid for keepin up the cultural heritage, which is not limited to
material things.
P. 25, final paragraph: law of 1624 — Usury is an evil; above 8% it be-
comes a punishable criminal offense.
Will write to and try to unparalyze Mr. Eliot. Forget if you have met
him.
There are 30 or 40 typing errors in this copy: single letters. Unfortun-
ately I was reading lying down without pencil or cd. have corrected 'em.
On last page you say 'church' has not made distinction. It shd. be
'English Church,' as I think the Scarrrlett Wumman Rome has distin-
guished (in fact, you come to that further down the page). . . .
At any rate, good job; not yet perfect. But enjoyable reading.
306: To Joseph Gordon MacLeod
Rapallo, 28 March
Dear MacLeod: Bravo! I am damn sorry you have lost your capital be-
cause every farden in these days is a plank in the tiny raft that civilization
368
1936— aetat 50
was floating on. And yr. loss adds that much to my grudge against the
damn tee-yater. But you probably saved your soul and lost yr. caste marks
in the process.
You might note my article on the Church of Rome in Soc. Credit for
March 20. Plus communist denunciation of me on March 17th in New
Masses. Plus Italian Bank Reform and the penetration of half a dozen
Italian reviews and the Osservatore Romano, etc., by Por and myself
writing, if you like, post-Douglas. Corporate State, hierarchy of values,
and Italy where a man damn well is not valued merely or even more than
1 5 % (if that) for his money.
Damn, I saw some of the Centaurs and thought Faber promised to print
it. The abandonment of you by Eliot, Adrian, and the non-contact with
Faber's blue china and slush boys, iz all plus with me.
I won't argue with you over single sentence, of necessity obscure, until
I know you have read my three books on econ: ABC, Impact, Jefferson
and/or Mussolini, and my current notes and articles. Or till you assure me
you know where the world has got to in fight against the big usurers,
Westminster bank in particular.
The fine old word 'an independence* meaning not to be slave to con-
troller of credit. The 'owner* damn well does not control the output of his
factory. The market is lord and the bank (save in Italia) has a corner on
money.
Hell, Eliot won't print me either, except when I am harmless (they have
been trying to find something harmless for a year. Meanwhile Routledge,
Nott and the yanks have had to print several items). And my book on
money is held up, and the second vol. of the Make It New series has been
split into segments.
Use or own. Damn it, I don't want to buy or own every hotel I stop in.
Ownership is often a damnd nuisance, and anchor. It was my parents'
owning a house that put me wise, and I struggled for years to own nothing
that I can't pack in a suitcase. Never really got it down to less than two
cases. Which is a nuisance and really a stigma of poverty. Given adequate
purchasing power one cd. own less.
I suggest you try a little Frobenius.
The Gaudier head was finally howked out of Violet's garden, the worse
only for a few lawn-mower scratches. It adorns the hotel dining-room on
the sea level, as the facchini didn't feel equal to hoisting it, and we weren't
sure the structure of the terrace wd. hold it.
Waaaal, regards to the lady.
And this is all the time I can take oflF' Savin' Europe' fer the moment.
I don't think Eliot can be blamed for 100% of Faber's actions. He is
2A 369
Rapallo
caught in the buggaring system of usury and that is that He complains
that ' they' put him to cleaning latrines. — / — /
307: To T. S. Eliot
Rapalby 25 April
Why dunt you never talk turkey !
I don't mind earning the rent, but whazz use of a letter all full of irrele-
vance? If I interrupt the flow of soul, life of reason, luminous effulgence of
internal meditation, stop playin tennis against Palmieri and, in general,
lower the tone and the tenor of my life, I gotter he paid.
Why don't you say: ' Will you do 10 quid worth of hack work? ' I mean
if that's what you do mean. 1 take it all I gotter do is to talk
about Britches, not necessarily read the ole petrifaction? So do be specific.
Rabbit Britches indeed ! ! ! Whaaar he git the plagiarization of Babbitt aza
name anyhow? And as it wd. stop my doing an article already begun on
three blokes that aren't yet mortician's, I spose I cd. be allowed to make an
occasional confronto between Britches' dulness and the serious unread-
ability of a few blokes that would write if they could, but at any rate don't
pretend, like the buzzardly [lacuna] . . . proposed title of the article:
'Testicles versus Testament.' An embalsamation of the Late Robert's
Britches. All the pseudo-rabbits: Rabbit Brooke, Rabbit Britches. Wotter
hell. Your own hare or a wig, sir? ? ?
I spose I can cite what I once said of Britches? I managed to dig about
10 lines of Worse Libre out of one of his leetle bookies. Onct. And then
there iz the side line of Hopkins. Couldn't you send and/or loan? In fact
the pooplishers ought to donate a Hopkins and the Hopkins letters so az to
treat Britches properly. Background for an article that wdn't be as dull, oh
bloodily, as merely trying to yatter about wot he wrote.
Something ought certainly to be done to prevent the sale of Oxford
Press publications. Thaaar I am wiff yuh.
308: To T. S. Eliot
Rapallo, 26 April
NO ! ! my dear Sathanas: On reflection I see that it wd. be whoredom, and
not even en grande cocotte.
370
I 93 <5 — aetat 50
If the luminous reason of one's criticism iz that one shd. focus attention
on what deserves it, a note by E.P. on Bridges wd. be a falsification of
values.
I thought (cogitation, the aimless flitter before arriving at meditatio)
that the cadaver might be used to feed young pelicans, or to do honour to
the obese but meritorious F.
But more I fink ov it, the less honest does such a wangle appear.
It is not a case where one can merely throw Richardly Aldingtonian
dirt. I can't think Britsches has enough influence to be worth attacking.
I mean one hasn't the excuse, as one has with nine-tenths of your Criterion
writers, all Murrays, , bastards, Normans, Angells, etc., that
the vipers ought to be killed. The number of putrid pigs in England is so
large that to dig up a corpse for reburial, especially a corpse of the null,
wd. be inexcusable unless one were absolootly in need of feed within the
fortnight.
I did not instantly expect to find the evil one lurking under yr. weskit.
But so was it. — / — /
309: To Laurence Pollinger
Rapallo, May
To Rt. Rev. Pollinger: — / — / The fee is due to quality. The stinkingest
fourth-rate painter wd. get six times that for work requiring a 25 th of the
time and acumen. Don't you go running away with the idea poetry is sold
by the acreage any more than painting.
The sooner the pubing world gets the idea that the few good poets have
a monopoly on First Rate work, the sooner the London sewage system
will function and distressed areas become fewer.
The whole of an anthology of that kind rides on the work of four or five
authors. The rest is detrimental. Snipes could be made to pay to get into
good company. Sharks catch suckers that way in far countries.
The mistake of my life was in beginning in London as if publishers
were any different from bucket shops. Arnold Bennett knew his eggs.
Whatever his interest in good writing, he never showed the public any-
thing but his avarice. Consequently they adored him.
An utterly stinking social order does its damndest to extirpate the arts,
and then howls for pity when an artist gets wise.
There is not the faintest reason to build on the false criteria implied in
the Roberts' anthology.
371
Rapallo
310: To Katue Kitasono
Rapallo ^ 24 May
Dear Mr. Katue: Thank you for your friendly letter of April 26.
You must not run away with the idea that I really know enough to read
Japanese or that I can do more than spell out ideograms very slowly with a
dictionary.
I had all Fenollosa's notes and the results of what he had learned from
Umewaka Minoro, Dr. Mori, Dr. Ariga. But since Tami Koume was killed
in that earthquake I have had no one to explain the obscure passages or fill
up the enornous gaps of my ignorance. Had Tami lived I might have come
to Tokio. It is one thing to live on the sea-coast and another to have
traveling expenses.
Your magazine will, I suppose, arrive in due time. Printed matter takes
longer than letters.
Your technologists can perhaps follow what people suppose, wrongly,
to be no fit subject for a poet (despite Dante, Shakespear, and various
other excellent writers who have understood why a poet can not neglect
ethics, and why an ethic which is afraid of analyzing the motives of actions
is very poor sham). — / — /
311: To Tibor Serly
Venice y (September)
Dear TTT-borrrRRR: Yer damn right, them New Hungs can play the
fourtett. I like Palotai vurry much. He can't say much and we have only
my limping German. I wd. damn well like to have 'em in Rapallo. In fact
am determined to go on with the Rapal. concerts, despite fact that I have
no assets save what I can earn. And haven't yet sold the stuff I proposed to
shove into 'em.
Pal. sez they wd. be passing thru Italy in Feb. You spose they wd. come
for 500 lire and a night's lodging? I can't tell 'em the Gertlers did and
would again. I don't honestly know which 4tet is the better. Palotai a
better cello than Gertler has, I think. Eh bo? Both of the quarts played
here last week. Hung, in Ferroud and Bartok Vth. Gertler in Honegger
and Berg.
37*
1936— aetat 51
And say bo ! ! can yr. li'l friend Hindemith play the Vl-olahhh? ! I'll say
he can play die viola.
Yunnerstand I can't even offer the 500 lire yet. All I can do is to ask you
to write Pal in Magyr and ask if they wd. be insulted by the suggestion.
I told him I wd. like to have 'em. The date wd. be at their convenience.
What I am doing now is to put together a project on which I might by a
miracle raise the minimum necessary cash.
Onforchoonate incident. The Hungs wanted to eat at midnight. I have
known Venice 30 years but never tried to eat a dinner at midnight, I know
that all the good cheap restaurants, the family cookings, etc., close at about
9.55. Am afraid I got 'em stuck with some bad grub, but it was the only
place I cd. count on being open. Not having any common langwidge, will
you tender my tough apologies and hope they fergiv and ferget. The violer
player yenned toward another place, where I thought they wd. git stuck a
price. Mebbe they wdn't have been stuck but it is a place on the Piazza
where I thought it wuz dangerous for working men like ourselves to risk a
bill.
312: To Eric Mesterton
Rapalloy December
Dear Mr. Mesterton: I write to you as the only responsible Scandinavian
of my acquaintance, in confidence and not for publication over my
name.
The S. Acad, ought by now to get round to seeing that Douglas and
Orage worked for peace, whereas dozens of soupeaters merely yodel about
it in hope of ha'pence.
As to the literary reward ! ! In fact several of 'em. Tastes differ. Merely
derivative writers with active wives or popular success are not idealist in
the profound sense of the endowment. Or may be that adjective was used
in ref to peculiarly Scandinavian terminology of Nobel's epoch. Doubt-
less the average of recipients has been high, but some of the greatest and
most honest craftsmen, the most persistent battlers for truth have been
omitted.
The carving a thesis in eternal beauty or in lasting verity ! ! !
Hardy, Henry James among the missing.
Sine Lewis certainly less idealist than the author of The Portrait of the
Artist and Chamber Music y and not in same category as author of Ulysses.
373
Rapallo
O'Neill a post-Shavian derivative. Why not Green Pastures while they
were about it?
Of course the American so-called Academy is a blot on God's sunlight.
I don't suppose O'Neill was recommended by them any more than Sine.
Lewis. But the existence of a mass of infamy like Butler invalidates U.S.
official recommendations.
I write this in confidence, not to be used with my name, as I imagine any
foreign interest or interference wd. breed resentment and opposition. Per-
haps one shd. keep hands off; on the other hand, the sheer material force
of the Nobel Award could be of such great use intellectually and morally
if applied where it wd. stimulate greater and more incisive search into
truth. Surely that also is a permissable form of Idealism. Shaw himself a
mere louse in comparison with Hardy, Joyce or H. James. And Lewis and
O'Neill less than G.B.S. Have always thought poor old Upward shot him-
self in discouragement on reading of award to Shaw. Feeling of utter hope-
lessness in struggle for values.
I suppose Gourmont never had a look in.
But you can not set O'Neill against Cocteau's Antigone. Not commen-
surable. Someone ought to get these ideas or this sense of values into the
Swedish language. It ought not to come as from a foreigner. Though no
harm in citing it as a kind of opinion which foreigner might hold. Indeed
it might even be as implied from published criticism.
313: To Gerhart Muench
Rapallo, December
Dear Gerhart: Do you know Hindemith well enough to be able to find out
what is the minimum he wd. take to give an all Hindemith program here
with you (or with you and Olga, if there is a trio) ?
I hear he is coming for the Florentine Maggio musicale so he wd. be
passing near here.
I told you he had been invited to organize all the music in Turkey for
Kemal?
Reports from Germany now hot, now cold. One, that the Ministerium
likes him; 2) that his wife is a Jewess; 3) that he was-is-was-isn't, etc.
banned and his name ordered kept out of press, etc.
I think the New Hungarian Quartet is fixed to come. As I wrote they
and Hindemith highlight in Venice Biennale, with the Gertlers whom we
had here two years ago. That item in case he wd. feel he was (not) in good
company apart from you.
374
1936 — aetat 51
314: To Agnes Bedford
Rapalloy December
It is the next Music and Letters that I am in. I think it is called Jan. issue.
And the estimable editor regrets my deleting a line wherein I referred to
Giordanno as a garbage can. (Age, m'deah; age, I am getting mild and
tender — I delete.) . . .
Music and Letters (Mr. Blom) appears to be too intelligent and 'right'
(from my pt. of view) to last.
What of other music pubctns? I am rather ready to write and have a go
at building up reception of the Villon. Critical campaign for intelligence —
rights of the word etc. Aiming at really putting over the Villon and
Cavalcanti. But also to bring in vogue of Young, Janequin (already under
weigh) etc.
And poke into the operatic blokes (XVI etc.) who meant well — (I am
yet too dam iggurant to know what they really did). What is Rosing up
to? Still too damn lazy to learn the words of anything? I don't mind how
good 'his stage sets are — all helps and don't matter. . . .
Read Cocteau (I spose you do anyhow); read some more if you haven't
all of him.
I don't know whom else. Simenon was superior Wallace, but is finished,
I think.
315: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo, 19 December
Dear Swabey: Can you find out from the Bishop of Durham who it was
who stopped the the Church enquiry into the nature of money monopoly,
credit and economics? The Church Assembly made a first move; it dis-
sociated work from employment.
The Archbishop of York did not object. Or at any rate sent me a brief
acknowledgement of my compliments rendered very informally on that
occasion (postage due, I admit, as only a few Englishmen recognize that
countries not under English domain require a different postal rate from the
home countries), but still. . . .
375
Rapallo
In the present crisis it matters somewhat whether that stoppage came
from the friends and familiars of Messrs. Morgan, Norman, etc., or from
the ecclesiastics who have some interest in religion. You as an intending
parson have a right to know whether you will be expected to obey yr.
bishop or something more centralized and mysterious. — / — /
376
1937
316: To T. S. Eliot
Rapallo, January
Eminent Udder, S.C.D., etc.: — / — /
There onct wwga lady named Djuna
Who wrote rather like a baboon. Her
Blubbery prose had no fingers or toes;
And we wish Whale had found this out sooner.
This exaggerates as far to the one side as you blokes to the other.
I except Ladies' Almanack, which wuz lively. Marianne is scarce an
exuberance, rather protagonist for the rights of vitrification and petri-
faxis.
317: To H. L. Mencken
Rapalb) 24 January
My dearly beeluvved Hank: Wot you say is mostly so, but why try to
bluff yr. venerable friend that you have read any serious work of mine for
a decade??
Who the hell cares about Doug, schemes? The job of a serious writer is
to dissociate the meaning of one word from that of some other which the
pore boobs think means the same thing.
Obviously until blokes can define the word 'money' and ten or a dozen
more words occurring with equal frequency in econ. writing, their writ-
ing will be tosh and their readers remain in same stew they were to start
with.
The act of dissociation can just as well, or better, take place re some-
thing daily, and concrete as re something in a washed-out Impressionist
painting.
What you go on doing is thumping an unreal effigy and callin* it
377
Rapallo
318: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo , 27 January
Dear Duncan: I am for it if and but. I am for it if you have really looked
over the ground, tried to coalesce with such extant efforts as New English
Weekly and Music and Letters (Eric Blom). To both of which this note
can serve as personal introduction.
I take it you are under 40 and that my experience as editor, as part of
edt. boards, etc., can be useful, whether it is immediately applicable to yr.
case or not.
Naow lemme tell yuh ! ! A successful (intellectually) review is made by a
small compact group of writers. Should be at least four. Have you got
four? Three is a bit scanty. The Little Review had four. The Mercure de
France had 30 more or less. The English Review, when it lived, had really
three generations — stratified groups with 4 or six in each. But F.M.H.F.
was unbusinesslike.
Yunnerstan, my affairs are such that I must be paid something, even if it
is only ten bob or two guineas. To write without being paid now (given
my circs) is sheer self-indulgence on my part and avoidance of duty on my
part.
How many of the writers whom I read with respect and/or interest are
you willing to include? (Most of 'em wd. also require from ten bob to
2/2/-, though at least one wd., I believe, let you have stuff for nothing.
Possibly two, though the 2nd should not.) Heaven knows there is work for
a live monthly magazine. And also I wd. be willing to put a good deal of
energy into the right one. — / — /
319: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, January
Whoops ! And do I envy you. I do. That is the proper way fer a bloke ter
know iz Greek. Here I am spendin 24 hours readin the De Vulgari Eloquio
which is also badly needed in a sloppy and slobbering world. Man peram-
bulates triplex, seekin: the useful (this he does in common with vege-
tables), the delectable (in company with the animals) and the honestum
(where he ain't got no company unless it's the blinkin hangels).
378
1937 — aetat 51
Obviously this is not Homer, but it is a comfort after an age of Wells
and Jas Douglas. — / — /
And yet again, I have never read half a page of the Odyssey without
learning something about melodic invention. The more a man
goes over a real writer the more he knows that no reader ever read any-
thing the first time he saw it.
320: To F. V. Morley
Rapallo, February
Waaal, Cetus be Grumpus: Annas fer your epistle. Do I gitt
you? Faber's lament for not commissioning ABC of Reading, but wanting
something more comprehensive. The monkey's tail, let us say? Wot Ez
knows, all of it, fer 7 an sax pence. O'Kay by me. But the pro-
viso that I can revise the damn thing from time to time as I get wiser. And
that it don't need to be full of padding an sawdust.
THE NEW LEARNING (Paideuma being too long a word for
the public)
Introd.
Introd. on what Ez don't know.
Part I. Method (digest of the Analects)
Philosophy: history of same. Guide being Fr. Fiorentino. Plus a few
scraps what he didn't know.
Licherachoor: restatement of How to Read and ABC Reading. (Not
repeat, save of one or two essential summaries.)
Economic element in history and/or the conception of history in living
historians who are alive, with retrospect to CI. Salmasius an a
few wise guys.
Mebbe sub-title 'How to Learn' would be useful.
Mebbe it would sound safer to the Colleagues if one putt it:
Method
Philosophy (history of thought)
History (hist, of action)
Licherchoor and deh Awts, the flow-yer of civerlizashun. Contrasts
between Hoccydent and orient. Racial elefunts necessary fer the
whole of Kulchur.
How much does Ez git fer eggsposin hiz iggurunce ? In the brasscovered
manner? And when do you want the mannerskrip to git to deh printers??
379
Rapallo
An how you gwine ter keep deh Possum in his feedbox when I brings in
deh Chinas and blackmen?? He won't laaak fer to see no Chinas and
blackmen in a bukk about Kulchur. Dat being jess his lowdown Unitarian
iggurunce. ...
321: To Laurence Pollinger
Rapallo, February
My dear Larripol the Hipol: Fer Whale's own sake and fer the diggity of
letters he should be made to pay up somfink on signing, but not to have
that mean that he merely cunctates and putts off signing fer sax months.
I don't type anudder woid till this is settled. Even if only 20
At contract time the HippoVs eye
Should never blink, nor nodding head be hv(n,
But to Gug Faber's wiles reply:
'By whales/ the price is rhpi'
Waaal, if you ain't still got that de Schloezer, gorrknoze whaaarrr it iz
got to. Mebbe it would be better by itself, not with my adjuncts. Mebbe
the Whale is loaded up to his plimsoll mark anyhow. I should hate to
think of him down below thaar, overbarnacled and crusted wiff pearl
oysters so'z he'd snuffocate and die of not breathing.
322: To F. V. Morley
Rapallo, February
Waaal, Whale my Cetus: As I was billyduxin, along come the Polehanger
with a concrete, which I answers by this postum, but to save stylistic jem,
I also send you the ' turn this the udder way hup.'
And me already a-sailing into what the Greek flylozzerfers airit by com-
parison with Kung-fucius.
I suggest The New Learning as a be'r title than Guide to Kulchur. The
public mightn't take the Guide idear seereeyus. However, if your public
is rough you kin call it the Guide to Kulchur, so long as you don't call it the
Gide.
Waaal, now about printin' bits as we go along: I mostly don't care, and
not likely that I could serialize very much of it. ...
380
1937— aetat 51
323: To Laurence Pollinger
Rapallo, February
Dear Pol: It reads like a mystery story to me. Anything Butch (Mont-
gomery Butchart) does without upsetting you is O.K. with me. As to M.
Beerbohm, Max never told me anyone had given him that kt. hd. I knew
he got a doctorate from the wild Scots.
I don't advise you to waste time on that question. Butch wrote me he
could get a thousand quid on the proposition and I asked could he. 1
I should like to know as it would be a fair measure of the god damned
driweling idiocy of the swine of [lacuna] make a writer's life difficult. The
French have a word of five letters and the Eng. one of four.
It is not a book I should offer. I can conceive almost no circumstances
under which I would write it.
It is very difficult to be understood.
Obviously if the sons of hell put up a million for copying the dictionary
one might feel justified in doing it. But I should not feel justified in asking
P., Pol. and H. to run round London trying to get a million on that pro-
position. Do I make the nuance clear ?
324: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo y 22 February
Dear Swabe: Why tax money? Why just not issue i/8th? Hell ! ! the main
purpose of money is to distribute goods, food, etc. A govt, must spend, on
roads, police, etc. The tickets issued must not be for amount in excess of
available wanted goods. Hence need of some cancellation mechanism.
They mustn't simply multiply and accumulate. (Doug's is not very com-
prehensible to the layman.) Gesell's is the simplest possible. Properly used
it means no debts lasting beyond the productive powers of plant created by
expenditure. (As in cases where money is borrowed by govts, to build things
that perish, while creating unending taxes and indebtedness.) Etc.
1 He could. An American publisher offered £5°°- English offers died with this
letter. The proposition was The Life and Times of Max Beerbohm, by Ezra
Pound.
3 8i
Rapallo
It don't so much matter what you call 2, thing so long as you know what
you mean and can communicate that meaning. Phobia at the term tax can
be excessive.
I should like the Trollope pamph. on Palmerston if obtainable at
reasonable price.
325: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, 10 March
Dear R.D.: Motto? Duncan hath banished sleep.
I think second number had better be the W. Lewis, not the Cummings.
Cummings should take longer to prepare, and W.L. is 'more familiar to
your readers.' The Landor-Lewis, Crabbe-Cummings merely alliterative
couplings in first draft of idea.
The Lewis gives you chance to examine London as at moment of your
own birth. Say the unknown London 1909 to 1914 or '17. BLAST, Lewis
in BLAST. 191 2, quarter of century back. Books already there; about
1914, files of Egoist. Dubliners. Lewis' Tarr (original version), Portrait of
Artist. These three are known. But the BLAST stuff is not. Lewis' posi-
tion, etc. You, Auden and D. Thorn could all have a say re the constructive
element or the pre-constructive destruction needed.
Re Cummings, etc., and America: I think you better invite Jas. Laugh-
lin to act as American edtr. or correspondent or whatever. Make it clear
that you can not introduce all the writers in his Nude Erections. That you
prefer to do a good job on the best of 'em. That Hiler and Cummings are
all the English traffic will stand during first six months. That you want
him to do the short article on Cummings' poetry. That anything else he
does will have (for reasons of space — 32 pages official total, even if you at
last moments run to more) — anything else from him will have to be
limited to 200 word notices of events, i.e., books that mean. That he has
200 words a month absolutely free of yr. editing and that you want a page
(500 words or whatever yr. page holds) and don't imagine you will find it
unusable. But that 200 words per subject is all that wildcat editing can get
over on the suet-headed Brits.
In the case of Cummings: I think you shd. do article on Eimi yourself.
That someone should notice Cummings' play Him. Laughlin do the
poems, esp. No Thanks. Auden on Cum. would also be interesting. Eng.
view vs. J.L. And that D. Thorn, should do article on the whole Cum-
382
I 937 — aet *t 51
mings. Or alternate you and Thom. on Eimi. Thorn, do social significance
olEimi and you the general survey of the lit. I want you to read the Eimi
yourself, whoever tackles it. Cummings' position with large public is due
to Enormous Room. Known in N.Y. for the play and the ballet on Unc.
Tom's Cabin (Tom) and the E. Room. You can announce the Cummings
number in the Lewis number. Or vice versa if you can get the Cummings
ready for No. 2. But I always tend to run too far ahead of pub*^
interest.
326: TO HlLAIRE HlLER
Rapallo, 10 March
Dear Heelair: At last a guy with some brains is startin a maggerzeen in
Eng(of all places)land. As he had the sense to come down here from
Marseilles for 12 hours in order to consult the high and final EZthority,
you can see he knows eggs.
Every three months is an art number. We think the first ought to be a
Hiler (as most unknown in Lunnon), the second a L£ger based on the mass
of L's work, which nobody realizes until they see at least that Teriade
book, Cahiers d y ArtY \L. 1928.
Young Dune (no relation of Isadora) will nacherly get over to Paris to
get hep to what since.
For the Heelair number you orter say a few words. (Short, everything
short.)
First real mag since Little Review (if you except transition and Exile,
which were each partial in one way or other). At any rate kid has got sense
and is quick, not Brit. suet.
For third art issue, I see nowt better than Ernst-Dali-Arp-Mird. But if
you got ideas as to anything, tell us. I dare say a W. Lewis would be better
if 'Lewis will show sense and collaborate. At any rate, that wd. precede the
sur's, if etc.
If you got any better line, tell papa.
Dune, very amused at you n me being two rejects from The Little
Review swan song in 1924.
I think he has picked the few live wires in London and done it very well.
Nacherly English ain't very lively but some is less dead than others. And
the mag will be small, at least to start. No need of transition crap or
Jheezus in progress. I am about thru with that diarrhoea of consciousness.
383
Rapallo
Why ain't I called it that before and not in a private epistle? All I thought
of when I last saw J.J. was: ' in regress.'
I dunno who in Amurka except you and Cummings and young Laugh-
lin?? (the latter as correspondent). Eng. traffic won't carry the whole of
the prairies.
Bill Wms. will be respected, and if Mule really gets printed, them
young lads can shout. At least they will read Am. Grain. They at least
know that sur-r ain't news. That it was already made in 1923, etc., which
their concurrents do not know. In fact, I think it's a good bed.
Can you send that catalog of yours and some unpublished photos of
later work (as many as poss., saying which could be reduced if neces-
sary).
327: To Katue Kitasono
Rapallo, 1 1 March
Dear Katue Kitasono: All right! Kitasono is your family name. We occi-
dentals are very ignorant. You must tell us, patiently, even these details.
The poems are splendid, and the first clear lighting for me of what is
going on in Japan. The new Japan. Surrealism without the half-baked
ignorance of the French young. — / — /
Dear Mr. Katue: The most galling part of my ignorance at the moment is
that I haven't the original text of the Odes. Pauthier was a magnificent
scholar, and I have his French to guide me in Kung: Ta Hio, the Standing
Fast in the Middle, and the Analects. I have also an excellent English crib
with notes for these works. But the English version of the Odes is intoler-
able and an old Latin one unsatisfactory.
Can you find me a cheap edition? I say cheap; I mean good and clear,
but not fancy. If it has a translation into some European language that
would help and one would need to use the dictionary only for the interest-
ing words.
Tami Koum6 had a satisfactory edtn. of the Noli plays. The kana I can-
not use. But I do recognize more ideograms than I did.
Impossible to write ideogram with a Waterman pen. I am doing a little
essay, starting my next book with a note on A
the first very clear, the latter interesting in
its context.
f - its.
384
I 937 — aetat 51
Translations of the Odes are so bare one thinks the translator must have
missed something and very annoying not to be able to see what.
With Sordello the fusion of word, sound, movement is so simple one
only understands his superiority to other troubadours after having studied
Provengal and half-forgotten it, and come back to twenty years later.
When I did Cathay, I had no inkling of the technique of sound, which I
am now convinced must exist or have existed in Chinese poetry.
Does VOU include a critique of Japanese past poetry as a whole? A
position from which you look at Chinese poetry, Japanese poetry gradu-
ally freeing itself from (? or continuing) Chinese, as we continually sprout
from or try to cut away from, or reabsorb, resynthesize, Greek, Latin?
There are here too many questions.
328: To John Lackay Brown
Rapalby April
Dear Mr. Brown: Fair questions. When I get to end, pattern ought to be
discoverable. Stage set k la Dante is not modern truth. It may be O.K. but
not as modern man's.
I certainly do not deny individual responsibility. I do deny the right of
any man to shut his mind and accept the unmitigated of the
present econ. system, artificially maintained by the most god damned
and liars.
I don't expect, in the end, to have introduced ethical novelties or
notions, though I hope to light up a few antient bases.
The Protestant world has lost the sense of mental and spiritual rotten-
ness. Dante has it: 'gran sacco che fa merda.' The real theologians knew it.
Part of the job is finally to get all the necessary notes into the text itself.
Not only are the LI Cantos a part of the poem, but by labeling most of 'em
draft, I retain right to include necessary explanations in LI-C or in revision.
Binyon has shown that Dante needs fewer notes than are usually given
the student.
You are very right that Blackmur et sim. do not, etc. If Yeats knew a
fugue from a frog, he might have transmitted what I told him in some way
that would have helped rather than obfuscated his readers. Mah ! ! !
Re your p. 2: that section of hell precisely has not any dignity. Neither
had Dante's fahrting devils. Hell is not amusing. Not a joke. And when
you get further along you find individuals, not abstracts. Even the XIV-
XV has individuals in it, but not worth recording as such. In fact, Bill Bird
2B 385
Rapallo
rather entertained that I had forgotten which rotters were there* In his
edtn. he tried to get the number of correct in each case. My 'point*
being that not even the first but only last letters of their names had resisted
corruption.
Person looking for gibberish is welcome to find it. A Wimmin maun ha
her will.
42-5 1 are in page proof. Should be out any day. I believe they are clearer
than the preceding ones.
Doing a note on Hardy (Hardy's Collected Poems) for my next prose
outbreak. Now there is a clarity. There is the harvest of having written 20
novels first.
Take a fugue: theme, response, contrasujet. Not that I mean to make an
exact analogy of structure.
Vide, incidentally, Zukofsky's experiment, possibly suggested by my
having stated the Cantos are in a way fugal. There is at start, descent to the
shades, metamorphoses, parallel (Vidal-Actaeon). All of which is mere
matter for little Blackmurs and Harvud instructors unless I pull it off as
reading matter, singing matter, shouting matter, the tale of the tribe.
If you have Polite Essays, you will see note to effect that economics
always has been in the best large poetry. Bank money wasn't so vital to
Odysseus.
329: To F. V. Morley
Rapallo , 9 May
Waaal Whale: I dun finished reading my bukk, and there is a few phrases
which mebbe iz libellus. I hereby give permish to omit the
names of bloody lice like r or n, when they occur in indiscrete circs.
Yuhgitme?
Nacherly I talk about interesting subjects fer 360 pages out of the 370
(my loose typescript), but kulchur occurs in or above the stinking manure
heap, and can not be honestly defined without recognition of the dung-
heap. Don't let this worry you into thinking I spend much type space
mentioning lice. But Harry Stotl, he mentions POLITIKE, etc.
Of course I talks erbaht deh Buck Hare and other diversions. Can't
spend me hole time on Any.
I got some reflexshuns on deh Possum, co's of co'se he's kulchurd az "
hell. O long about his ducksun to Sam Johnson's Vanity. Waaal, naow I
axs you is Sam Vanitied ? ?
386
1937— aetat 51
An I hope you won't fink I overdid Aristotle, cause I got to do somfin
so't of thorough, fer to kork up deh end (deh TELOS or termination).
Can't just go butterflying round all deh time.
I hope you all wasn't xpektin a Wbook.
330: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo, May
Dear Doc Rouse: Sorry; but England never wanted to see her face in a
mirror other than a pink one of her own making. Foreign opinion of your
country is not and never will be English opinion, and a great many Eng.
characteristics neither attract Latins nor the stock that left Eng. in the
seicento.
Even so dispassionate an observer as Miss M. Moore writes: 'I dislike
Eden and Baldwin as much as if I knew them personally.' I know the great
Eng. pubk. loves smugness and the great passion of the majority is for a
boot, any damn boot, to lick. It comes out even in visions. Well, pass that.
It is a wasted prelude. And we get no further. After 12 years in London I
wrote a couple of cantos.
And I get letters from various Englishmen who do not agree with your
views. I personally doubt your objectivity. You have too many decent
instincts to register certain kinds of filth. I wdn't in normal course set you
to catch the considerably more than thief and considerably less than human
who infests part of yr. island.
Also you can not sell me Pindar, and you can't sell me a dialect that
never was spoken and never will be. The classicists have fouled their own
bed. Once the classics could be studied in certain extent. But to try to take
up room in a full life that is needed for Chinese and for Frobenius
researches, is no go.
A man can read a thousand or 5000 or whatever books, but to suppose
that they will be the same 1000 or 5000 after new treasure is available than
there were in 1 500 is to relapse into habit.
I will back you and Homer in any international Olympiad, but I won't
be loaded up with Mr. Pindar.
And I never heard any nurse or farmer say ' for by thee on the sea swift
ships are steered' or use any such constructions in daily talk. That is die
choctaw that has driven Greek out of the schools.
There is too much unexplored Chinese, and what one gets out of it is
too interesting to leave one time for this rhetoric
387
Rapallo
When you get my Guide to Kulchur, you will probably curse me with
the black currse of the OTooles.
Anyhow, lasting gratitude for Golding.
I hope my lambasting of Arrystotle will arouse a little real interest as
distinct from the bureaucratic exploitation.
I don't see what I could do of use to the Loeb Library unless I do a
review (i.e., 70,000 words or thereabouts) on the whole of it. And heaven
knows I am not going to buy it. I can of course do potty little notes on
new volumes, but that means contenting some damn muggyzeen editor
and arguing over each vol. and getting it away from the usual hack
reviewers. I could do the Loeb as (but more fully and 20 years more
maturely than) I did Henry James' collected edtn. I don't mind having
tne stuff on loan //transport is paid nin and zuruck. But a real volume that
would sell the library or part of it to a larger public, would imply cutting
pages of the recommended authors. At least possibly so. And the lenders
might object. On the other hand that could be obviated. I could indicate
excerpts by page and line. However you better suspend judgment till,
when, or if Faber do the Guide.
What I should do would be a long essay, criticism of Greek and Latin
cultural heritage confronted by post-Renaissance knowledge of subjects not
familiar to Pico della Mirandola. The Classics, not vs. 'the moderns' as in
1 8th Cent, shindy, etc., but their place in a plenum containing XlXth
Century Europe, the Orient, prehistoric art, Africa, etc. In short, in a full
culture, with cinema and modern mechanics. Not merely overawed by
high-sounding reputations nor squashed by disbelief in the
past.
No, I will not help you reinflate Pindar. I left a beeyewtiful folio, Greek
and Latin, of P. in London. Call me bdy. barbarian. I do not believe Pindar
was the 67th part of Homer. All right as dilletantism for a bloke that knows
Homer backwards by heart. . . . But I would rather you spent the next
decade revising your Odyssey and your Iliad.
331: To Michael Roberts
Rapallojjuly
Dear R: What I am trying to get into yr. head is the proportion of ole
T.E.H. to London 1908 to 1910, '12, '14.
Hulme wasn't hated and loathed by the ole bastards, because they
didn't know he was there. The man who did the work for English writing
388;
1937— aetat 51
was Ford Madox Hueffer (now Ford). The old crusted lice and advocates
of corpse language knew that The English Review existed. You ought for
sake of perspective to read through the whole of The Eng. Rev. files for
the first two years. I mean for as long as Ford had it. Until you have done
that, you will be prey to superstition. You won't know what was, and you
will consider that Hulme or any of the chaps of my generation invented
the moon and preceded Galileo's use of the telescope.
Don't think that I read The Eng. Rev. then. I did not lie down with the
Wells or read Tono Bungay. Nothing to be proud of, but so was it. I was
learning how Yeats did it. I believe that T.E.H. (if you dig up ms. you can
verify) referred to 'the pavement grey' (or 'gray'; don't remember his
spelling). He had read Upward's new work. I didn't till I knew Upward.
And I suppose I am sole reader of all Upward's books, now surviving. I
spose there is a set in Brit. Mus., and it might be possible for you to borrow
my set, if you are in London.
I believe Hulme made Mrs. K(ibblewhite) and Flint do a good deal of
the sweating over the actual translations of Bergson and Sorel, having got
his slice on the options. I remember Flint glumpily talking about Hulme
as a 'dangerous' (? man, which) I take to mean that he had colluded
Frankie into doing something useful. To T.E.H. at least.
Frankie is another study. You ought also to remember who were still
alive in those years, and on whom young eyes were bent. The respectable
and the middle generation, illustrious punks and messers, fakes like Shaw,
stew like Wells, nickle cash-register Bennett. All degrading the values.
Chesterton meaning also slosh at least then and to me. Belloc pathetic in
that he had meant to do the fine thing and been jockeyed into serving, at
least to some extent, a order of a pewked society. But not, as I
felt, liking the owners of the pile.
Of course for those years London was Strand Magazine romance to
young foreigner. Dare say Mike Arlen Kiljumji was the last rrromantic in
Alladin's cave.
332: To Katue Kitasono
Rapalloy 23 October
Dear K. Kit: Your very beautiful book has just come, and I have started
trying to read it, though some of the type forms are not as in Morri-
son.
389
Rapallo
The poems look as if you were going in for some extreme form of sim-
plification, at greatest possible remove from Chinese elaboration. Not that
I have been able to read even a single sentence at sight.
I take it no one has tried to make poems containing quite so many
simple radicals. But my ignorance is appalling and my memory beneath
contempt.
333: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapallo ^ 30 October
Dear Dr. Rouse: Hupward an' honward ! I am very glad my language was
violent, and nothing is lost. You spend a lifetime and establish one dimen-
sion of the Odyssey which d — n well needed to be estbd. My friend F.
spends 60 years listening to the sound of different-sized English sentences.
Binyon takes 70 years to get cured of Milton. All of you get your rewards;
and each his own, not the other fellow's. And at any rate I don't keep one
opinion for you to your face and another for use among writers who don't
like y etc., etc. The hardest job for the critic is to know when a writer is ex-
hausted by an effort and how long it takes him to get back elasticity
enough to revise a given job. F. M. Ford wasted 40 novels, as I see it,
excellent parts merely buried in writing done at his second best. And so
forth.
What is Curzon's Oriental Series, and isn't it the place to get a few
results for the essential Chinese classics?? I have just finished a longish
essay on Mencius. I am not setting up as an authority on Chinese, but it
might save a decade or so to know of a series that could use results when
attained. I shall have to go East some time. The new photo processes make
it possible to reprint the Legge at a human price. Study certainly held up
when the first books a man wants cost 20 quid. Thank heaven I have what
is probably a Shanghai'd (pirated) edtn. of Kung and Mantse, and have
managed to get the Odes from Tokio (a very bright lad there who runs a
better literary magazine than the Occident is now providing or at least
wider awake).
Is there an available prospectus or catalogue of Curzon series? What
does it aim at? Certainly the Legge inter-page version of Kung, etc., ought
to be available at a possible price; the Curzon could go on from there. I
should think the Legge a monument, and real aid to comprehension cd. be
furthered rather by warning the student what it is and what it is not than
39°
1937— aetat 51
.by trying to do new edition in English in a hurry. The only way to learn
Chinese is interlinear or inter-page. Awful waste of time hunting charac-
ters in dictionary.
The Oxford Univ. Press ought to be fried in oil and Milford and his
filthy gang stuffed down the jakes. Of all the farces, of all the misapplica-
tion of name, etc., that is the damndest fake in England. The Soothill
Analects is just Legge with a little face cream smeared over it. No new
donation, no new digging into the original at all. Just Soothill's ideas re
slightly more re-feened langwidge than Legge.
The Loeb is a serious publication.
Law of diminishing returns ought to be restated or set against a law of
increasing returns in study. There is more kick in ideogram for us, and for
the next century of the Occident than in any other study. Or if that is a
silly way of saying it, say than in any other study until you get down down
down to bedrock — where almost no one ever does get.
The best thing I got out of the Loeb was the fact that between the
Nicomachean and the Magna Moralia (ought to be called the longer not
greater) the damn Greek lecturers had just slid over Aristotle's teXne in
the list of components of kinds of intelligence. That was the beginning of
the end. I doubt if anything but injection of Chinese studies can cure the
results of that desiccated highbrowness.
P.S. I don't doubt the Curzon committee will be hypnotized by the
superstition that all books in a series must be in uniform format, and that
the inclusion of a photostat reprint of Legge wd. be the sin against the
Holy Ghost. But even this form of superstition is subject to comment.
334: To W. H. D. Rouse
Rapalloy 4 November
Benedictions: No, I am not cursing you fer not makin your kings talk like
gangsters. — /—/
Where the translation can be improved is in dimension of inflection of
the voice. Possibly no change of vocabulary required, but the greater
variety of intonation and of sentence movement. The indication of tone of
voice and varying speeds of utterance. In that, Homer is never excelled by
Flaubert or James or any of 'em. But it needs the technique of one or more
life times.
I dare say (in private) that the use of slang is merely a sign of imperfect
391
Rapallo
technique. The slanger wants to get the real sound of speech as spoken,
and can only get near it by using the expression of the moment. Limited,
this view, by fact that the god damn iggurunt often think they are using
vulgah and slangy eggspreshuns when they are using words right out er
Bill Shxpr, such as 'boosing' or 'bowsing/ etc. Look at Pericles:
Faithy she would serve, (pause)
after a long voyage at sea.
The cadence is so well-taken that even the archaism in the first word
doesn't dim the naturalness of the sentence.
i. words
2. sentences and movements of same
two parts of writin'.
I come back to Ulysses the toff, liftin his imaginary highhat as he comes
out of the underbrush.
My forebear is 78 or 79. Hard to get him to read the story again so soon
after he has read it. Or at any rate, I haven't yet got any new comment
from him.
Yaaas, Curzon: stuffed (if ever was one) shirt would putt his prot£g&
onto them damn Hindoos and omit the more valuable languages.
Isn't it time you wrote some memoirs? Old Legge bristling with Pro-
testant prejudice?? [lacuna] notes accompany my texts of Kung and Mang
Tse. But vurry good learner. Ohyes.
Your impressions of these blokes probably more interesting than Sans-
krit curleycues. After all you have lived thru one of the stinkingest periods
of world history on into a dawn of sorts. I feel sure Butchart wd. welcome
some reminiscences. If you putt 'em in current language. No man escapes a
'bosse professionel' (or however the frawgs spell it). Greeks, I believe,
had the decency to spell as it sounded to 'em, even if on two sides of the
same street. Bloke said to me yesterday: nine separate dialects in Genova.
Not a highbrow bloke, but an ex-marine, as we were coming from
tennis. — / — /
335: To Gerald Hayes
Rapallo, 30 November
Dear G.H.: I am aiming my muzikfest for the first week in Feb. Hoping to
give rather more of Whittaker's 12 new Purcells than W. seems to think
advisable all in a lump.
392
x 937 — aetat 52
Now about Jenkins: I think I asked you once before, just as you were in
confusion of moving house. I hope to have three trusty fiddles, Munch at
piano, a cello, and at a pinch the members of an untried but recommended
quartet. Is there anything of Jenkins (or enough for a whole evening) that
could be played as it stands?? Say I have it photo'd white on black 3-1/2
by 4-1/4 inches — would that be legible? O.R. could then copy out the
parts. Preferably not more than three fiddles, keyboard and cello. Pro-
bably no keyboard in original. Do any Dolmetschers want to dechifrer the
basses (if so it be) or rejuice something for disponible instruments? 1 know
nowt of Jenk, save what you have told me. Munch should provide the new
Vivaldi, and stick to that job.
Heaven knows there is enough. And with the Purcell, we shall have
representation proportional to Englyshe, but may as well interjuice Mr.
Jenkins if it is possible.
As I haven't yet a projector, the small but not millimetric photos would
save time. I don't mind spending a bit if it is to effective and immediate
end.
Can you tell me who publishes Dowland? Or have 'em send catalog if
anything possible for 3 fiddles and/or edited to fiddle and keyboard.
P.S. I seem to remember 3 vols of Lawes' songs. Thought it was
modern edtn., but may have been in Brit. Mus. Songs, not instrumental
stuff. Have never seen any instrumental Lawes.
336: To Montgomery Butchart
Rapallo y 1 1 December
Dear Butch: — / — / And now to both of you, disobedient (which don't
matter) but naif (which may matter).
All successful magazines are sold below cost. At any rate at the start,
and later if they succeed (sez Pat the oirushman). Town and Country ten-
pence to produce (this was years ago), yearly profit 20 thousand quid.
You are competing with Night and Day and other mags at 6 pence. The
way to exist and put yourselves over is to calculate how much you can
afford to lose for one year, or two years, or yearly; and try to cut down
that loss slowly. You can not sell at 2/6. The blurb was not sales talk. The
mag isn't here yet, so this crit. is preliminary.
If it cost you 1/6 per copy (for how /wa/iy?????) to produce, you lose 50
shillings on every hundred copies sold direct; plus postage, plus 32 shil-
393
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lings i/you sell at 8 pence to the bookshops. If you can sell 200 copies and
distribute 100 as publicity, you are on the map. If you can sell 400, you are
flourishing, at the cost of:
1 50 shillings for free copies
200 to 300, say 300, for copies sold.
If you had sent me estimates, clearly, I might have been in posit to see how
to save some of this. Damn it, BLAST, its enormous mass, sold at 2/6.
20 quid is a small ante for a new group of writers. A small real loss better
than a large one with a carrot of hypothetical profit before nose if, etc.
Which is not.
Anyhow, loss for first year inevitable. Depends what you can afford to
lose, how much per number. . . .
. . . with which kind woidz I await the arrival of Tnsmn.
Damn it, when the thing has a name, you can put up the price of back
numbers. We didn't put up price of Little Review, but if il had been neces-
sary, we could have done so.
Reid has arrived here.
What else?
I have no drag with Gotham Bk. Mart. Laughlin wrote quite clearly
that your proposal to him was idiotic, that he cd. not sell Tns at a dollar.
The 'Book Mart* has infinitely less optimism and never bought any books
from me. Wanted 'em on sale or ret.
Miller has considerable talent. Ultimately bores me, as did D. H.
Lawrence. But that is private. In fact, I oughtn't to be dragged into giving
opinion even to you and request you to keep it under your hats. I am not
the general reader; and Miller is too good for them. I mean more than they
deserve; and I wish him luck. Certainly comes just after the real writers of
whom there are (numeral left blank).
Celine don't interest me at all, but what of it? Who does? — / — /
337: To Montgomery Butchart and Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, indepisl, 11 December
Dear B n D: Waaal wunners will nevuH cease. Mebbe I wuz wrong; at any
rate, glad I got it off my chest this A.M. cause mebbe I would have hesi-
tated.
But it can't sell for more than 75 cents in the Eu. S. Ah.
I congratulate you on the format, Mebbe you have pulled it off. Banzai.
394
1937— aetat 52
Eljen. Very clever the wire top and Cummings' end-on page. We shall see.
Mebbe my morning note was just senile doubt.
The Johnstone looks active. At any rate useful. Of course, it is Ernst
and Arp, unless the colour is something else. Mah ! ! ! Looks 1938 anyhow;
or at least 10 years nearer 1938 than anything else in Eng. — / — /
I suspect Bob McAlmon is still yr. best bet for short stories. At any rate,
try to connect him. Possibly via W. C. Williams. Unless you got a better
line of communique.
That stiff cover and end-on paper, a great light. Cover good. Denys
Thompson probably useful as medium of contact with outer world. None
of the rest touch it.
Ask Eliot for a brief and a/iprintable poem. Or ask me officially to ask
him.
Suggest review of Wyndham L's Doom of Youth in No. 2, with inquiry
into cause of its withdrawal, if it was withdrawn. — / — /
I have read Dune's Scene I. Thass O.K.
Mont O'Reily's promised ms. not here yet. He wrote he would prefer it
to the old one I have (M. O'R, pussydonym fer W. Andrews).
Anvbody can be asked, on evidence of first issue. Zukofsky and Bunting
can't diminish the appeal.
I was praps trying to be tacktful and leave a chance for public adhesion-
isiveness. . . . Waal, goobye to awl that.
As noble extinction faces us, may as well have all the living on the con-
tents list. Includin ole Bull Wlms if he can do a ringer. But not to be repd.
by an inferior half-hour.
Young England: serious characters comprise the venerable Butch
(almost disqualified as over age limit), one other kenuk, the black Scot,
and Mr. Swabey. Can he write a brief essay or whatever for No. 2? Any-
how, there is about awl ole pop's ideas or as Butch asks: 'criticize in anny
waye.'
Cocteau should be honoured; so shd. any frog or Parisite. To be asked
in.
It is good enough to sell when it has become a rarity, and impurities are
not there to rot it. I guess yew boyes have pulled one.
W
Rapallo
338: To T. S. Eliot
Rapallo , 14 December
Waaal my able an sable ole Crepuscule: It tain't often I has the chanct ter
invite yer, but there izza bloke, as they say here, 'in gamba,' and he wanssa
rouse all the mudfrawgz of the Camasco an he sez: Will the Possum rite a
piece way ing just and plain wot he fink a styge (notta stooge) playe orter be.
He pays somfink, not much ace. Threadneedle standards, but you cd.
sell the piece later in the orryginal wiff the kudos of its havin been re-
quested an published nearer the centres of European culture. Dew yew
git me? It needn't be long, as I know you're lazy. But also it needn't be in
that keerful Criterese which so successfully protekks you in the stinking
and foggy climik agin the bare-boreians. Dew yew git meh?? I spose the
answer is: lanwidg of Agon sustained thru a lively and brefftakink axshun
to a Tomthunderink KlimuXX. However, you can say wot you like (not
in epistolary, cause they cdn't translate that wiffaht losink somfink, but in
Queen Eliz's and the Pos's English).
396
1938
339 : To Carlo Izzo
Rapallo y % January
Absolutely my first free moment.
i. 'With Usura the line grows thick* — means the line in painting and
design. Quattrocento painters still in morally clean era when usury and
buggary were on a par. As the moral sense becomes as incapable of moral
distinction as the p of y or ...t n or n, painting gets
bitched. I can tell the bank-rate and component of tolerance for usury in
any epoch by the quality of line in painting. Baroque, etc., era of usury
becoming tolerated.
2. 'Praedis': I don't care how you spell your wop painters, and I don't
know whether A.P. was from Predi, Predo or Predis. Never been to his
home town.
3. St. Trophime, in Aries, civilization entered that district before L.
Blum and Co. got control. Better keep frog spelling, there ain't no church
of S. Trofime.
4. 'Eleusis' is very elliptical. It means that in place of the sacramental
h — i n t he Mysteries, you 'ave the 4 and six-penny 'ore. As you
see, the moral bearing is very high, and the degradation of the sacrament
(which is the coition and not the going to a fatbuttocked priest or registry
office) has been completely debased largely by Xtianity, or misunderstand-
ing of that Ersatz religion.
'Ad' is certainly better than 'per,' but neither translates the 'for' which
means 'invece di,' 'per le rite Eleusiniane,' 'dalle rite.' Hellup ! ! English is
halfway between inflected languages and Chinese.
I am not sure that 'Tollerando usura' doesn't sound better and give the
force better than 'con.' 'With' in English derives from Ang-Saxon and
has oppositive aroma. As in 'withstand' meaning 'stand against.' I don't
mean that it means 'against,' but 'Tollerando' has a sonorous body that
helps the line.
'Behest' (last line) very strong imperative; probably not indicated in
dictionary. But I think stronger than 'cenni.'
All of which gives you more trouble. Ma ch£. .
397
Rapallo
You could leave the 'con usura' in various places, but I think 'toller-
ando' better in opening line and in line 2 for the repeat. Also the choice
between the two (' con' and ' tol.') gives you more freedom.
'Mountain wheat': they say here 'di montagna' not 'monte,' which is
also associated with hockshop.
'Demarcation' is intellectual. It is also boundary of field if you like, but
demarcation is universal. The bastid Cromwell and Anglican
bishops and bankers obscure every hierarchy of values.
'Tagliapietra' (?? not man who breaks stone, but the artifact).
A. de Predi is O.K., if that is where he came from. I wonder if he was da
Prato?
??? 'Pietra viva*}} Whazzat mean? San Zeno architect also cut a lot of
the stone pillars himself and signed one pair (group with knots of stone).
'Fu San Trophime' would keep your rhythm. I think in Italian you
need 'la Chiesa' both for churches in Aries and St. Hilaire, or Poitiers.
Otherwise it could mean the blokes themselves and not the ecclesiastical
munniments.
'Weave gold in her pattern': in Rapallo Middle Ages, industry of
weaving actual gold thread into cloth.
'Nessuna apprende pifc l'arte di telerare con filo d'oro.' Damn wop
language has only one word for thread and wire????
' Grembo ' ? ? How refined ! ' Ventre ' ? ?
What is 'ceppi'?? 'Brought palsy to bed.' I.e., palsied old man. Shake-
spear's language is so resilient.
Next line I think you have done well.
'Hanno condotto donne da conio ad Eleusi' seems to me to get the
drive. That does give the sense of profanation.
* In convivio ' better than ' messa ' ? ? ? ?
I don't like plural in ' cenni.' — / — / '
340: To Otto Bird
Rapallo, 9 January
Dr. Ot. B.: Bout 3 days ago I luk thru me foto col. I sez;
* Blast ole Gilson, five years and nowt done.* Only rush of work saved me
the postal charge of writing him to say ' Wotter 'ell ! ! Send 'em back if you
can't get action.' Write me as fully as you like. I think I have printed most
of what I know about Dino.
398
1938— aetat 52
Have you the Cicciaporci edition of Guido? Firenze, Nicol6 Carli,
1813. That has a good printed Italian version of the Garbo commentary,
which of course your thesis can not ignore. Will serve as check-up on the
ms. Cicciaporci really the best editor of Guido.
In return for my answers to whatever you don't know and I might, I
suggest you gather any available information re Scotus Erigena, trial of
Scotus Erig., and his condemnation. Was it merely for some fuss about the
trinity? Does Gilson know aught abaht it?? Where is Gilson, if he ain't in
Toronto?
If you (in parentheses) have any poems, send 'em to Townsman
saying I asked you to do so. They are out for quality not
quantity, and could, I think, use you. If they don't go bust, they cd. also
print brief resum6 of yr. beliefs re the del Garbo, if and/or when you have
any.
Which reading are you dealing with? The one I fuss over or another
one?
Send me anything you like up to 20 pages. Better, yr. ideas on two or
three sheets, unless I ask for further light on partic. points.
Young Danl Corey is workin on epistemology. You might also connect
with him. His opinions cd. enrich a thesis and concentrate our fire. I don't
find his address at moment, but you could get him via Criterion (my name
as introd.). If letter via Criterion don't reach him, I will indaginare his
ubicity.
The edition of the commentary should of course include reprod. of the
photos.
I shd. think the Italian version shd. also be included. Plus deciphered or
still better diplomatic printing of the text with all the abbreviations. And an
English version with notes.
What about yr. passing thru Rapallo, if various books not in local
library?
There was a bloody great sprawlin edtn of commentaries, Garbo-
Colonna-Rossi in parallel cols. Don't seem to be in bookcase and forget
name of editor. Might trace it if you don't. You do not want it till the end
of your studies, as it is more confusing than otherwise and not pertinent
to del Garbo. Good thesis wd. deal with Garbo; a thorough job on that
would be more use than a wallow in the wake of whoever it was did the
sloppy correlation of G. with the others. Adding, as I remember it, no
light.
My preference is for Avicenna. But the early printed editions are more
likely to retain traces of what the XIII Century thought Avic. meant than
are modern ones (or one).
Rapallo
Waaal, son. How'z your Arabic? We can use a Arabiker. Bunt'n gone
off on Persian, but don't seem to do anything but Firdusi, whom he can't
put into English that is of any interest. More fault of subject matter than of
anything else in isolation.
And so forth.
341: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, 17 March
If you want to plan or want advice, better come on down here. Glad to see
you in anny kase. As to strategy:
1. Butch didn't distribute No. 1 promptly.
2. When you first talked in the year XIV or whenever, the proposal was
four footed. Dune, Den Thorn., Auden, and Ez. That cd. have tentacled.
Cutting off contacts, the problem is other'd. If I am to serve the mag.
instead of the mag doing certain jobs that are useful to me, that is O.K. but
it is other.
For instance to get it reviewed, I should have to take a different line.
Not simply the concrete fact which the buggars won't understand anyhow
and wd. hate if they did.
Problem of my rent, also. I cd. put a different end on the Rend Crevel
article I am getting ready for Criterion. That might catch a few eyes.
I come back to things effected. There were Gaudier and Lewis, or vice
versa, plus me. There was before that my then recent headlines in 1909-
19 10 plus a clear program of three points plus a small nucleus of actual
poems (H.D., Aldington, one of Bill Williams which were distinct from
the stuff lolling about in 191 1).
Neither of yr. warblers have written to me. Mebbe more tactful of Mr.
Bridge's pupil to not. After all Bridges means more jobs and pay than I do;
also ils n'aiment/xu les iddes nettes.
I think the reason I loathe all stage stuff is that it is split. I can stand
quite bad theatre in the theatre, but when I read Shxpr I don't think of
stage, I think of people. Anything that asks the reader to think of effect or
how it wd. be on stage distracts from reality of fact presented. Even if it
does appeal to the ballet russe or charlotte russe instincts of the bee-
holder. Means the author not obsessed with reality of his subject.
Possum, by the way, thought your second scene not up to first.
After all there were, in London, dining circles or a weekly meeting of us
and periphery. There was circulation from room to room in at least going
400
1938— aetat 52
conoerns which wrote and published. It was a sort of society or social
ord- or dis-order. If young men funk that sort of thing, I don't see what
resonance they can expect; it is sting without sounding board. Admitting
all the to put it mildly //^perfections of the race of nuvvelists, of teas; but
to edit, to speak to, to awjgaben, as distinct from meditatin' on the old umbi-
licus ? ? ? //"that mechanism isn't used by the young they got to invent some
other. If no donkey cart, a wheelbarrow.
342: To James Taylor Dunn
Rapalby 12 April
Dear J.T.D.: — / — / Also once again: when I am not writing Cantos, I
do not care a hoot how much I am edited. I am not touchy about the
elimination of a phrase. When I edit other people, I cut out what I don't
want. When I am edited, I give the editor similar leeway. That is what
editing is. The writer provides the ammunition and the editor shoots it
toward his target. — / — /
343: To T. S. Eliot
Rapallo, 16 April
Waaal Possum, my fine ole Marse Supial: Thinking but passing over
several pejorative but Possumble — oh quite possumbl — interpretations of
selected passages in yr. ultimate communication, wot I sez appealin to you
for the firm's interest, on your return from your Pasqual meddertashuns
iz:
For review copies of Kulch (to git it circd. despite mutilation of the
title), Criterion better try H. Rackham, M.A., Christ's College, Cambridge
(England), as he would know somfink about the las' chapter. Tell him we
spose it is the most careful (his edtn or the Loeb (or Lowebb classics) edtn)
the Nic. Ethics has had. He would prob. do a damn dull rev.; but as wiff
Gilson, dull review, but after five years young Bird is put onto the Dino
del Garbo.
If Rackham is too stuffy, I spose ole Danl Corey is the only bloke wot
would think about the more serious passages in the woik. It would have to
2c 401
Rapallo
be over a pussydonym cause SantyYanner would sack him if he said any*
thing good about the book. And speakin of pussydonyms:
Sei the Maltese dawg to the Siam cat
' Whaaar\ oh Parson Possum at? 9
Sei the Siam cat to the Maltese dawg
'Dahr he sets lak a bump-onna-log. 9
— / — /To eggsplain about 3 Lat. Poets. I wrote Acquiring, then I gits
the buk, hence change of venue. However, if you want about six lines, I
will add 'em to the Golding. Don't bother to ans. this. I can say a woid
about the Plautus and not sell the other two essays. Thus maintaininyowr
friendly status with Routledge. — / — /
334: To Laurence Binyon
Rapallo, 22 April
Dear L.B.: You seem to have a good start (Canto I) and to be worried by
Canto II, lines 1 to 50.
How much revision do you propose to make in the proofs? How much
slashing and damning do you want me to attempt? We're not out for
collaboration and rewrite k la E.P. Is it any use my making definite sugges-
tions where I see other ways out than those you have chosen? E.g., if in II,
12 you use 'remain' instead of 'stay,' there are two rhymes for II, 10 and 8.
Do you often enough take the third of the terza rima and work back to
the first, or do you clutch and cling to the first rhyme you get and try to
revise inside that set of rhymes?
You have very considerably improved the final line of the II Canto
in revision (ink).
Page 22, line 2: 'chooses' is better than 'doth choose.' All these 'does'
and 'doths' bother me.
Then Canto III runs rather better.
Also: how nearly exhausted are you with the job? Have you been off it
long enough to come back fresh?? I mean the time between your last
looking at it before it went to the printer and now?
First flaw I hit is also in the original. Question of these similes which
compare several or many people to one, 'uom,' etc. Whether this is or was
accepted rather as the French 'on' (as in 'on dit,' which we translate 'they
•ay') I don't know. It always catches me up, to me a it is perfectly unseeable
402
1938— aetat 52
comparison. I should incline to use a plural on supposition that the reader
will read your English and only glance at the Italian when in doubt.
No use my counting the difficulties overcome. At this juncture the only
thing that matters is those not yet overcome. The question is when to tackle
'em. I think you ought to finish the job, with the Paradiso. How much
fault do you want me to find now? How much will it be useful for me to go
after with hammer and tongs ? ?
Blast the blighter's syntax: he (D.A.) is all full of backsided clauses,
etc. You can't shed the lot of 'em. But. . . .
This Purgatorio is one hell of a job. Can you give me any hint as to
what can be of most use to you at this time? I think the job enormously
worth doing.
Later:
I am inclined to say in desperation, read it yourself and kick out every
sentence that isn't as Jane Austen would have written it in prose. Which is,
I admit, impossible. But when you do get a limpid line in perfectly straight
normal order, isn't it worth any other ten? To limber your muscles, get
out of certain kinks whereinto you have been drawn solely by terza rima
and the length of the lines, would it be any good your reading Browning's
Sordello? Have you ever read it? Or Crabbe? And then coming back to
your verse.
I hesitate to make definite suggestions re particular words, as it might
hamper you. One can never emend another man's work, or hardly ever.
One can only put one's finger on the emenda.
Would you feel utterly immoral if you used an occasional 8 syllable
line, where at present you have used fillers? or even 9 syllable?
I now proceed to Canto IV.
P.S. I am writing all this because I think people who do not know the
difficulties of the job will be down on these minutiae like a pack of wolves.
And the fact that most of 'em won't recognize the merits won't help it.
345: To Laurence Binyon
Rapalloy 25 April
Politess in abeyance, job is too important for me to put on gloves.
Pardon unintentional asperities.
Dear L.B.: Your virtues can be left out of this. There are enough of 'em,
and several most admirable pages. All that counts at the moment is plug-
ging a few small leaks that could be plugged quickly in proof-correcting.
Canto I: line 121, Italian misprint, 'mio' should be € noi.'
403
Rapallo
Look again at the English from 'before her* to 'melting dew' [11. 1 16-
121]. 'Melting'???
132, the 'esperto' recalls 'POLUMETIS,' Odysseus* skill. Not
crafty enough to get back. Might improve the 'essayed' and
'knew.'
Canto II: 32, ' other sail than ' ??
37, 1 don't like 'did allume.' Or
59, ' if that they knew it.'
63, ??? 'strangers' rather than 'pilgrims'?? Hang the 'even as.' Also
80, 'did I enlace.'
94, 'chooses' wd. serve quite simply in place of 'doth choose.'
106, 'Those who.'
Canto IV: 3, 'raccoglie,' 'concentrate.' It hooks up with the 'bianco' in
Guido's ' Donna mi prega' and the melody that most draws the
soul into itself. Re also line 11.
13, you might get 'experience' at the end of your line and not 'did I
acquire.'
25, San Leo usual with cap. L.
33, the ' to need' clumsy at end of line.
Canto V: 47, 'even with the' etc. Drat that 'even.'
62, still worse; ' this my guide.' Damn it all, one does this sort of
botch at the age of 16.
1 01, 'did give.' (I am only swatting the 'dids' and 'doths' where they
have particularly hindered me. In the long run you flow suffi-
ciently to carry one over them. Thank Gawd fer that.)
Canto VI: 17-18, 1 know the orig. is 'quel de Pisa,' but it don't stick out
like 'he of Pisa.' Why not 'the Pisan'? What about dropping
the 'the' before 'good Marzocco.' Just a blank rest in place of
unaccented syllable. Perhaps this raises too many questions
about the convention of metric used. Shakespear did a lot of
funny bizniz with extra syllables, and it hasn't completely
bitched his sales.
36, 'dost consider.' Unnecessary at this point.
45, orig. *fia* not 'sia.' 'Make' rather than 'be.' More active verb.
109, 'cruel one* Nasty form; an Elizabethan might personify with
' cruelty.' Am not sure this fits yr style.
1 1 4, putt the ' me ' behind the ' befriend ' ? ?
127, 'Florence' has a hasty squishy sound. 'Fiorenza' or 'Florenza'
gives one's teeth a grip.
Canto VII: 24, orig. is not ' daV but ' del ciel.' [sic] ' Of 9 not ' from/ 1 think
it has definitely different meaning here, not merely an indifferent
404
1938— aetat 52
substitution. Dam's emphasis on these things much greater than
if Dean of Canterbury were doing it now. Also the 'form* is
ambiguous, tho not likely to be mistaken to mean 'moved me
from.' 'Heaven's* virtue seems to me stronger in movement.
3 1 I dunno whether ' babies' is right; or if it is ' muliebra' (vide D volg.
eloq.) vurry hard for an ang-sax to deal with swaddling clothes.
37, 'both followed all the others/?? Possible improvement in word-
order here? Lower down.
44, ' ascendy by night cannot be done* ? This improvable.
Canto VIII: 129, 'pre^io,' I don't know about 'glory' for this.
Canto IX: 28-60, O.Kay, cheef. This is one of the good ones.
75, ' like in a wall some crack that it hath got.' Try again.
Canto XI: 86-7, 'gran disio dell' eccelenza' (private kink of my own) that
'desire of excelling or beating someone else' is the meaning, not
the 'desire of perfection.' Our 'excellence' in English is almost
a synonym with ' goodness.' As the whole poem is one of fine
moral distinctions, this dissociation is worth making.
92-3, might be redone.
94-126, Good, very good. ' Naught but a wind's breath,' etc.
Canto XII: 3, 'dolce' always a sticky sweet when so translated. 'Gentle
pedagog'? Giver of easy instruction. Chance for a find, rather
than taking jujube.
(Your preceding note [lines 1-2] gives sense of Dant bending in the
yoke with the other bloke.
' We moved together
like oxen 9 (plural)
The T don't give proper visibility.
' I went with him bowed; and we were like a pair of oxen*
The suggestion of original and Dant suggestion^ into leaning over is
magnificent. You had the amazement at the shadow very well a few cantos
back.)
9, 'scemi' is very colloquial. I suspect the first time it ever got into
literature was here. It is what nurses and mothers say to small
children being bad and stupid: idiot, little monkey, you ass.
Born£; I don't quite know what to do with it: Stupefied, loggy,
drugged. I don't know where our 'shame' comes from; haven't
an etymol. die. here.
21, damn the 'doth spur.'
Page 137, lines 50 etc.: you can get better order. 'Pay dearly.' These
adverbs out of place; often as bad as split infinitive.
(Mad Arachne, just above, is excellent.)
405
Rapallo
The half spider already: fine: perfect prose order.
Page 139, have a go at last ten lines [XII, 82-93], from ' Reverence over
face/ ' Atti* are, I think, 'movements.' 'Disse' is accented on first syllable,
I know the vowels and general sound are like 'he said,' but 'saying' would
throw the line better. Line before, simpler word-order is easy to get. In
fact, I think this is a passage where you weren't at your widest awake.
It continues on p. 141 [line 98], 'above the forehead.' Angel wiped it off
his forehead.
102, 1 haven't ref. books but Rubicon is over by Rimini. I suspect it
is again San Leo and not San Miniato. Maybe you have author-
ity at hand. Rubicon cert, richer in associative value, Caesar,
etc., than 'Rubaconte.' Don't for garZake take my word for
this. It is the kind of thing I muddle, and the Rubaconte may
have nowt to do with Rubicon.
Canto XIII: 3, very dubious of improvement by 'evil offstrips.'
50, ' was cried ' rather bothers me.
76, ' Sage one ' grits my teeth. Damn these ' ones.' ' O du einige jeder ! ! '
A joke even among the ' tedeschi lurchi' who have no sense of
language etc.
93, damn the 'if that I hear.' Meaning 'if I hear,' 'if I hear that'??
107, don't like ' guilty blot.'
1 19, don't like 'bitter steps of flight.'
1 1 8, 1 think a good verbal order is attainable here.
Canto XIV: 10, 'never yet known.' Lines 10 to 16, word order improvable.
92, if Reno is Rhine, would give better sense of place. I don't know
that it is; you probably have proper books of ref.
97, here a lot of chance of simple improvements. ' Good' before Lizio
not interesting, but ' Harry* Mainardi improved sense of parti-
cular.
103, 'my' not ' mine eyes.'
104, 'Guido of Prata' gives elision of vowels. Better sound than
'Guy'??
118,' Pagani will do well ' [in place of ' well shall do the Pagani '].
122, 'does well to bear no son.'
126, 'hath our converse.' ' Our converse has.' No need of inversion.
133 to end, a lot of unnecessary tangles in the order. ' He to me spoke 9
is as bad as some of pore old Henry Newbolt. The original is in
natural order. 'He said to me.' ??'By who* or 'by whom/ 'I
shall be slain by whomever finds me/ Not 'findeth' in any case.
That is as far as I have got with the grappling hooks. Hope some of this
is some use to you. Will next proceed with XV to XVII.
406
1938— aetat 52
346: To William P. Shepard
Rapalhy April
Dear Bill Shep: I am going thru proofs of Binyon's translation of the
Purgatorio. I want to reinforce all I said of his Inferno in The Criterion
(reprinted in Polite Essays).
Binyon sheds more light on Dante than any translation I have ever seen.
Almost more than any translation sheds on any original. Gavin Douglas
and Golding create something glorious and different from the originals.
I strongly suggest use of Binyon in place of Temple edtn. for introduc-
ing student to the Commedia.
Also as Binyon tells me the Hell was a flop from sales side, I think
Modern Language Assn. should be stirred. Binyon is going on to the
Paradiso, but the revised edtns. of Inferno and Purg. would be blocked
and needlessly delayed if some one don't battistrade a bit.
I expect to whoop in Broletto. Apparently B's Italian friends are saying
he has got Dante's tone of voice (not the way I should have put it) and his
English half-wits telling him terza rima is unEnglish.
347: To Laurence Binyon
Rapalhy 4 May
Dear L.B.: Glad you are bearing up. (Yrs. of 2nd inst. reed.) The more I
look at Canto XVIII the more I am reminded of the soldier's letter in
'Cantleman's Spring Mate' (ref. 'Dear Ma: This war is a fair buggar.').
Here goes.
Page 207 took all of yesterday's paper.
30, possible literality. ' Endureth in its matter' gets rid of an adjective,
always a pleasant act. 'So mind enters desire when possessed'
more literal.
Middle page is good.
49, the scholastics will scalp you for changing 'substantial' to 'essen-
tial* unless you have an utterly perfect alibi. These are all
technical terms, nobody can understand them without either
notes or preparatory study; safest method is to leave 'em as
Dant putt 'em.
67, 'get to bottom of reasoning/ 1 daresay yr. version is pretty good.
78, Mike a big bucket's bottom' wd. get rid of clause 'that were
aglow).'
407
Rapallo
79, as to 'against heaven': Uncle Wm. Yeats not being at hand I
don't know whether this is astrologic retrograde. It don't matter
tome.
113, 'One of those spirits said then' (or 'spoke then'): "Where we
go." ' No need to invert.
Then it seems to flow or I get lulled.
Canto XIX: 35,' begone ' or ' move on.' Literally ' come on.' Which is a bit
too colloquial.
1 12, if the line ends . . . ' in want' and the next line begins ' Of God.'
Quite easy to do this and the original does. Even with a repeat
for emphasis:
'I was miserable ', I was a soul in want
Of God. Here thou seest what my forfeit w,
Here for greed thou seest I pay my account. 9
When some one is speaking I think translator has right to at
least Shakespear's technique and license in the line.
1 17, 'II monte': I am not sure whether the term 'monte' was already
current for hockshop. I think there is pawky dig in the word.
Whether this mount is more specific than ' the mount,' I don't
know.
119, if you end it with 'down-cast,' I think a more impetuous rhythm
is possible, and without tangle. And that it suits the movement
of the original. I won't bother you with my guess for the whole
line. Danger in my longer emendation is to loseyour tone. Can't
have change into an idiom that sticks out and falsifies a whole
passage.
123, 'So justice here to earth forces them bend' wd. eliminate another
damn Moth.'
Then she rides to page 233.
106, 'ghiotta' (and the cumulative effect of the original wording)
seems to me wd. justify a more interesting adjective than
'avaricious' which I find weaker than 'avaro' anyhow. 'Gold-
guzzling,' 'swilling.' I know the 'ghiotto' is not the adjective
attached to Midas in the Italian. I am talking of effect of the
passage as a whole. And I find your line with 'avaricious' too
ti turn ti rum ti turn ti turn ti tum. Might even be from that
blighter Milton. Also it has two nouns chaperoned by two adjec-
tives: Mr. and Mrs. Gosse in front, etc., etc. Whereas the
Florentine apothecary has a noun on its own in the front half of
line ! and the swilling M. in the second half.
408
1938— aetat 52
1 3 1-2, 1 am tempted. Mebbe if I do a pseudo-Chaucerian 2 lines it
will set you to something in your own key.
' Before Latona there her nest had made
Wherefrom she hatched two eyen heveneclere. 9
Or * of hevene clere.'
And so to dine.
Benedictions.
It's a grand life.
348: To Laurence Binyon
Rapalby 6 May
Seconde Fytte
Dear L.B.: Cantos XXIII and XXIV pretty clean; say toothbrush rather
than rockdrill needed.
Canto XXIII: 39, 1 very much doubt 'leprous* for 'squama.' 'Scrofula/
'King's evil'??
Most of this page [269, 11. 28-60] is very good. Browning would have
liked it, if you don't mind my suggesting this, you being possibly an anti-
Bob.
73, 1 wonder if it would be worth putting 'will' in Italics. I think one
has right to all sorts of printing dodges to clarify or make easy
the reader's path.
94, ' Barbagia in Sardegna.' One gets a feel here in Italy for this order
in place names, even in family names. 'Sardinia's Barbagia'
don't seem either English or Wop and, worse, it suggests a
person as much as a place to unwary reader.
97, again this problem of the 'dolce.' I wonder if a simple 'my
brother* would be as good here?
100, what does your commentator say about 'pergamo'? All my
Dante books are strewed along from London to Paris.
107, 'avergonate': 'girls' better than 'ones.' I loathe these pronouns.
The Italian adjective being feminine is translatable by a feminine
noun. The 'ones' is bad anyhow, and don't translate gender of
the original. 'Girls,' 'sluts,' etc., all permitted here and all more
visual than a colourless 'ones.'
1 28, is your Italian ' sia ' or ' fia ' ? The ' fia ' as printed is infinitely more
interesting. Suggestion being Christ made in the mass, and
409
Rapallo
Beatrice, as theology, made in Paradise. My text also reads 'fia,'
I won't swear 1 am right, but there is more interest in this inter-
pretation. Dante's words often contain a precision that one
passes over. E.g., the 'sanno' for Aristotle as distinct from
'intendendo' gives one chance to distinguish between cold
intellect and real understanding.
Canto XXI V: 4, 1 have meditated on ' eye's pits.' I think you are probably
right.
28-60, particularly satisfactory To mi son un che quando.' Compli-
menti ! ! ! And the chances of going flat just there were so many.
61-93, relapse into inverting.
69, 'longing's prayer' I particularly do not like. 'Leanness and (their)
longing they were.' Perhaps a bit Langland, but you have used
that tone now and again. Heaven knows the reader will welcome
short sentences wherever you can give him them.
99 the marshalls are I think more interesting than Wellingtons and
Bluchers. A 'marescallo' or 'mareschalco' up to at least 1450
was a ' master blacksmith ' and knew all about horses. // Libro del
marescallo is one of the jems in the Malatestiana at Cesena. As
Dant calls Arnaut Daniel 'miglior fabbro,' so here I think he is
paying a similar honour: The Craft and not the military pomp.
And the 'fabbro' to Provence would balance. There are several
of these echoes in the Commedia. The Provencal wherein Arnaut
speaks and the Spanish suggestion which I noted in my review
of your Inferno, for example. (Proportional honour to the
classics.) There is the 'cavalchi' on the first of the terza, to keep
the illuminated capital effect. In Arnaut the use of several words
suggestive of the same picture is characteristic.
All the above are trifling save the 'fia' and the 'master smith' — that I
should also make smoother by a run-on:
• . . ' those two
MareschalchV . . .
master smiths (etc., rest of line)
349: To Laurence Binyon
Rapallo, 8 May
Dear L.B.: I give you nearly a clean bill and a number of bull's eyes on the
rest of XXV and XXVI. Some very neat work. The 'sfumature' are so
410
1938— aetat 52
slight that I shall not bother to list them now. I might tome back to 'em
when you have finished the Paradiso.
Canto XXV: 113, omitting the 'and' you could keep 'cornice.' I rather
like it because Dant characteristically uses definite places and
here the road along the mountain-edge is definitely a cornice —
word still kept for French Riviera: 'corniche' — and does, I
think, carry specific picture to at least certain % of readers.
- Ground beats up ' is good, all the same.
Canto XXVI: 67, * Highlander' is excellent: in fact, you have got going.
1 17, the ' parlar materno ' is usually taken to be Provenjal, the mother
tongue of troubadour art, Sicilian and Bolognese being des-
cended from it. ' His tongue ' or a change of a syllable. ' Wrought
better in our mother- tongue than I' would keep your metre. It
is a trifling matter; I am less sensible of exact number of syl-
lables than you are; I would be worried if ' cornice,' for example,
was put where ' ground' is in XXV. However, applause. I
don't think even old Wubb and Whhosis can hold out against
these two canti, though c Y a rien que la bfitise humaine donne
une id£e de l'infini.' I at any rate have never taken in these canti
properly before. Dust on me blinkin' 'ead ! ! Oh well, when I
get to som of this Escalina, I will write you on one or two other
topics, not Dantescan, to give you a breather before you start
aviatin' through the merrygorounds. I think you have broken
the back of the difficulty, apart possibly from some of the
bloomink theology up aloft. Tom Aquin., etc. I forget what
he and Domenik have to say, but reckon it's teasy.
Canto XXVII: 1 8, ' accesi ' is ' lit ' and therefore still burning. I think there is
chance of improvement here: archaic 'brennt.' Sprained accent
in 'ardent,' 'cerement' and the great number of words ending
in '-gent' or '-ment,' 'unspent,' etc., 'indument.'
Magnificent finish ! Utterly confounds the apes who told you terza
rima isn't English. ' Coppices' is very English.
Occasionally a word is used. There is an ideogram in one of The Odes
(sun over horizon) that is used. The beauty here would only have been got
by using terza rima. I mean your having to use t. r. Lascia dir gli stolti
who don't see it, and who have been for two centuries content that
technique went out of English metric with Campion and Waller. Any
respect for art and any care for the technique is unEnglish in the sense
your bastardly friends employed the term.
For XXVIII: Bravo, Bravo, bravo. Nothing to mark, one or two
queeries. Line 12 'casts' is possible for 'casteth'; I don't know that I prefer
411
Rapallo
it. Good emendation or correction that you have made on next page.
P. 331, printer has used a defective letter 'd' at end of 'checked.' In fact,
there are no questions, nothing but O.K. repeated in my margin. This part
of the job is done. Immensely worth doing.
In Canto XXIX: Nothing a man writing a critical article could find
fault with unless he were a low crab. However, I am not writing a critique
but going over the text with a microscope.
24, 'Eve to rue' might be improved, but I shdn't bother about it
now.
95, 'even.*
107, 'has* for 'hath.' Possibly in another position.
1 14, an ' as ' to avoid two ' so's.'
These are all too trifling to bother with, and you have spent more
thought on it than I have.
I do, however, prefer your 'supreme Hippocrates' [line 137] . . . Milton-
ism tho' it may be. ... A good one. Possibly whimsical of me. ... I think
Eliot would prefer your emendation. At any rate we are on ground of
imponderabilia.
350: To Laurence Binyon
Rapallo , 12 May
Dear L.B.: XXXII starts off rolling and nothing for me to get my claws
into. Possibly 'my eyes' in line one, saving 'mine eyes' for 93, where I
think it is right. I believe an opening shd. be as near normal speech as pos-
sible and a heightened or poetic diction can be slid into later if necessary or
advisable.
44 and 46, 1 dunno about 'Gryphon* and 'griped* so near together,
sound, etc
48, a 'thus' would seem better to me than 'so.' And at the end of the
line, I am not sure about sense. I don't know that it is 'all
things *; ' every good ' would not arouse discussion.
50, 'brought it to rest' would avoid the 'halted* which don't seem to
me the verb juste. You might halt a company. Otherwise seems
intransitive verb. I mean the general feel of it is intransitive. And
even if captain ' halts' a regiment the sense is ' commands it to halt.'
63-4, 'strain complete,' 'eyes severe': two inverts. 'Whole of it'
would avoid the first and I should look for way of ending one
line with 'severe' and starting the next with 'eyes.'
94, 1 don't know whether you are stunting with 'very ground.' Seems
to me Dant means ' true ground,' with rather more emphasis and
412
1938— aetat 52
association of ideas than a philologically correct 'very' quite
gets.
95-6, and I don't know whether the bloomink chariot was bound 'by*
or ' to ' the bi-natured yannymal.
Then you do a very neat bit of work.
105, 'evil living men' seems nearer meaning. 'Profit the evil life 1
might mean the opposite? ?
151,1 queery sense in your 'she be owned/ Surely the Italian means
* no one should take it from her.'
'Shoot quick glances round (??Verb better than a 'with* for
Shooting [vividness.)
154, then you come to the only line of really bad poetry I have found
in the whole of your Purgatorio. ' But when she rolled on me her
lustful eye* might be Gilbert and Sullivan. Positively the only
line that is out of the sober idiom of the whole of your transla-
tion. Like Omerus he slept. Moderate verb and adjective
wanted. And may be better order if the 'head to foot* preceded
* paramour.'
149, 1 suppose the 'sciolta' means with her clothes undone. J'ai perdu
ma ceinture, etc. . .
Canto XXXIII: Very good down to line 81. Beatrice talking in crossword
puzzles anyhow; so you have done well not to alter the original
order of the words. The DXV counted as DVX, etc.
81, I thought 'it' was simple printers' error for 'is,' but even that
won't take the sense. The seal does not alter the image or figure
impressed on it.
' With unaltered image of the seal imprest"
' Under seal's power
Takes an unaltered image'
the unaltered image
' Takes the unaltered figure on it pressed'
' Holds an unaltered figure y ' etc.
Certainly the wax is altered by the figure. Or do you think that
he means the wax stays wax? In which case the reader needs that
stated clearly:
' As wax stays wax under the seal impressed*
under the form impressed
* As wax stays wax under the seaVs power
And takes the figure that the seal has pressed'
413
Rapallo
i io, etc., good. Very good.
121, reverse of usual situation where Italian has gender and English
hasn't. Dant has cleverly avoided a gender in the simile. I won-
der whether or not one should say ' would herself ? ? ? In various
places 'beauty' can in two syllables replace 'fair lady' if you
want room to turn round. Here it would permit you this and
more things beside.
129, 'well-nigh spent' is, I think, definitely bad for 'tramortita.' But
you may have a good dictionary that justifies it. I should have
taken it to mean ' wholly petered out,' but am not sure.
133-5, the 'da essa preso fui' terzet not a maximum.
136, possible alternative for 'more writing there were more space.*
All these possible alternatives are unimportant, but sometimes
loosen up a clutch to consider an alternative.
Once again my thanks for the translation. And there are damned few
pieces of writing that I am thankful for. The minute comments are no
more than noticing a few nutshells left on the tablecloth post convivium.
Nobody has had such a good time of this particular kind since Landor
did his notes on Catullus. Or at least I don't think you can find any record
of it.
And now, Boss, you get right along with that Paradiso as soon as
you've stacked up the dinner dishes. Why don't the twins do some work?
Decadence of the Empire? Banzai, alalia!
341: To Katue Kitasono
Rapallo , 10 December
Dear K.K.: Thanks very much for Cactus I(sland). I have copied the lines
on Wyndham L. and am sending them to Duncan. I don't yet know
enough ideogram to form an opinion of the original; and, of course, have
no idea of its sound.
I suppose a world of perspective is inhabitable and one of approaching
projectiles is not.
Have just seen W.L. in London. His head on duck; he has done new
portrait of me. You can judge the two worlds when you get a photo of it,
which I will send when I get one. The Wyndham drawing (done about
191 2) that I have brought back is better than the Max Ernst that Laughlin
introduced here circuitously. The Max that I had from him (Max) seven
years ago is very fine. In fact, it goes away and the other Max approaches
revolving.
If I don't send this brief note now, it will get lost in a mountain of papers.
414
1939
352: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, 10 January
Dear Ron: Didyou kill The Criterion? Wot will pore Robbink doo gnow?
Who hilled Cock Possum?
Who bitched his blossom?
7,' said young Duncan^
Sodden anddrunken y 'I bit The Criterion.'
7,' saidole Wyndham,
* I bloody well skinned 'urn. 9
7,' said Jeff Faber,
'I the worse neighbor
I tightened the puss-strings*
>>
353: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo y 17 January
Dear Ron: As you haven't given me Uncle Igor's address (or, if you did, I
can't find it) you might forward this.
The Hall is at their disposal, p&re et fils, for anything they care to do.
This is a pleasant part of the coast, rains and cold should 'be over in a week
or so. There is no population and I can't draw money from the air. A fee
for Strawinsky fils; yes, if it be moderate, //"their glory is strong enough to
draw a public from Genova or Pekin or Marseilles, they are welcome to the
total gate receipts. I will splurge away in the Mare 9 and Cuneo is ready to
go for the rest of the press. Genova papers always have noticed our con-
certs; before and after.
As you know the only overhead is the ten lire to porter and the cost of
programs. This family can cover that as their reward for admission.
4*5
Rapallo
Dear Ron: Will you send on the original of this (the above) to Igor or
Stanislas (or however he spells it) ?
Sorry Thompson is Leavising. But can't be helped. I shan't answer and
it wd.^be^better if some one less de la famille than Drummond could be
found to do it.
Peroni very busy.jDon't write even to me. At least nothing but cheques
reed, for months.
I don't see that Belgion can start Criterion, nor Read, esp. in view of
Possum's express remark to contrary.
What is he (T.S.E.) up to? If anything?
Thompson can't be worse than Mairet in The Crit. ??? Or can he?? Only
opinion I shd. like to see is Rackham's (Rackham, editor of Loeb edtn of
Nicomachean Ethics), but as Morley cut my main point, even that wd. be
conditioned. Still I could and would answer Rackham with pleasure. Final
part of Kulch shd. be correlated with my 'Mencius' in summer Criterion
and the point re difference between Nicomachean and Magna Moralia.
Which I would go into if asked.
I can't think of any other controversial ground in the book. The other
discussions wd. be mostly pointing out the ignorance, such as Mairet's re
that detrimental Lao Tse and clumsy inance cf. of Arist and Plato to Lao
and Kung (mere tosh).
P.S. You could of course invite Rackham, saying Thompson has missed
the whole point of the book and that his (Rackham's) answer, attack or
whatever on the final section is the only one E.P. has any respect
f or .
354: To Ford Madox Ford
Rapallo, 3 1 January
Dear Fordie: Friends of ole Bull 1 is a good idea (I spose yours) for a
country so lousily low that everything is run on personality. A
' sort of' Acadimie Goncourt couldbe used as prod to the useless Institute of
Letters (whereto, as item for the Friends of Yam Carlos, you can say I nom-
inated the said Yam Carlos within 24 hours of my own admission, but the
sap-headed nominating kummy tee did not put his name with Walt Disney's
when it came to the annual recommendations). That body, if seriously
criticised, Murry Butler strangled and Canby educated or drowned, could
be useful, at least in getting certain things reprinted. — / — /
1 Ford initiated 'The Friends of William Carlos Williams' — a circle devoted
to the discussion and dissemination of Williams' work.
4x6
x 939 — aetat 53
355: To Hubert Creekmore
Rapalloy February
Dear H.C.: Copy of A Lume Spento supposed to exist in Treasure Room,
Harvard Library (also possibly, but not sure, in Hamilton College
Library).
God damn Yeats' bloody paragraph. Done more to prevent people
reading Cantos for what is on the page than any other one smoke screen.
Don't bother about jejune attempts. Nothing worse than digging up all
sorts of immaturities. Masses of uncollected stuff in unknown magazines,
also in Italian; nothing yet done with my Italian notes and criti-
cisms.
I don't have to try to be American. Merrymount, Braintree, Quincy, all
I believe in or by, what had been ' a plantation named Weston's.'
Vide also the host in Longfellow's 'Wayside Inn.' Wall ornament there
mentioned still at my parents'. Am I American? Yes, and buggar the pre-
sent state of the country, the utter betrayal of the American Constitution,
the filth of the Universities, and the — ■ — system of publication
whereby you can buy Lenin, Trotsky (the messiest mutt of the lot), Stalin
for 10 cents and 25 cents, and it takes seven years to get a set of John
Adams at about 30 dollars. Van Buren's autobiog not printed till 1920.
An Ars Poetica might in time evolve from the Ta Hio. Note esp. my
'Mencius' in last summer's Criterion. And as to 'am I American': wait for
Cantos 62/71 now here in rough typescript.
Literature rises in racial process. No need of letting off steam about
process. You belong to the human species, you don't have to do anything
about that; you can't become a kangaroo or an ostrich. Take all known
family stocks from about 1630 via N. Eng. or Quaker whalers, landing I
believe in N.J. Could write the whole U.S. history (American hist) along
line of family migration; from the landing of The Lion, via Conn., N.Y.,
Wisconsin (vide Impact), to Idaho.
Ole Bull Wms. a mere dago immigrant. Finest possible specimen of
course.
When are you going to make the place safe for natives} Or to hell with
safe; when are you going to make it or permit it to be made a fit habitat?
For Ars Poetica, gorrdamit, get my last edtn of Fenollosa's * Chinese
Written Character.' Vide my introduction.
Yes, do better than that squiff, that femme ouistiti and lowest degree of
animal life (apart from Cambridge Eng. profs) . . . . r. That pamphlet a
2D 417
Rapallo
laboratory specimen. Evidence for the condemnation of American teach-
ing system if ever was one.
I believe that when finished, all foreign words in the Cantos, Gk., etc.,
will be underlinings, not necessary to the sense, in one way. I mean a com-
plete sense will exist without them; it will be there in the American text,
but the Greek, ideograms, etc., will indicate a duration from whence or
since when. If you can find any briefer means of getting this repeat or
resonance, tell papa, and I will try to employ it.
Narrative not the same as lyric; different techniques for song and story.
'Would, could,' etcetera: Abbreviations save eye effort. Also show speed
in mind of original character supposed to be uttering or various colourings
and degrees of importance or emphasis attributed by the protagonist of the
moment.
All typographic disposition, placings of words on the page, is intended
to facilitate the reader's intonation, whether he be reading silently to self or
aloud to friends. Given time and technique I might even put down the
musical notation of passages or ' breaks into song.'
There is no intentional obscurity. There is condensation to maximum
attainable. It is impossible to make the deep as quickly comprehensible as
the shallow.
The order of words and sounds ought to induce the proper reading;
proper tone of voice, etc., but can not redeem fools from idiocy, etc. If the
goddam violin string is not tense, no amount of bowing will help the
player. And so forth.
*j|As'to the form of The Cantos: All I can say or pray is: wait till it's there.
I mean wait till I get 'em written and then if it don't show, I will start
exegesis. I haven't an Aquinas-map; Aquinas not valid now.
356: To Wyndham Lewis
Rapallo, 3 August
Dear Wyndham: I have buried pore ole Fordie in (of all places) The
XlXth Century and After. Only hole left. And an inadequate oration as
they had room for 'under ijoo' and by the day after the day, etc. An I
think you make a beau geste and putt a penny on the ole man's other eye.
No one else will.
Kussed as wuz in some ways, when you think of Galsworthy's England,
etc., etc. And for ten years before we arruv I spose he had no one else to
418
J 939 — aetat 53
take the punishment from the frumpers. Wuz agin the 'mortisme' of our
venbl. friend Possum, and in short, virtuous as these things go in a world
of Gosses, Royal Ace, etc. He did not regard prose as mere syntax. — / — /
Waaal, I am sorry you wuzn't in Washntn, and I hope you meet Unci
George (Tinkham) before he gits too tired of it awl. Nothing much else
vurry paintable, though I can interjuice you to the Polish damnbassador,
Patocki. Nice chap, but got Polish awt on th walls.
Why don't you dig up Angold? Nearly as bad a correspondent as you
or Mons. Eliot.
Daily paper in Greenwich, millionaire suburb outside N. Yok, open to
Ez. You might find it useful means of communication with some of the
pubk if you go over or if you want to print anything there. They favour a
lit. page by Ez. But the financial prubblum ! ! !
Also I onnerstand Barr (Mod Art Mus) is lookin for early W.L. Damn,
I told you not to waste them drorinz. I might poifekly well have pinched
die lot, and sold 'em for yr. bean-y-fit. Blue gal reposin at my left. Full of
characteristics that wd. prob distress you. . . .
If you see Eliot, take a monkey wrench and find out what the hell
Morley means to do in N. Y. (if anything save sink into the damnbience).
There is also a lot of my econ. writing available when young whathis-
name gets back. I fergit wot you told me about Allen Unwin or why the
blighters never print me.
Couple of young lads think them essays ought to be available. Dunno if
you can turn them onto any deaf ear ? ? ?
357: To Ronald Duncan
Rapalh 9 6 August
Dear Ron: Have just had time to dig yr. Pimp, Skunk {and Profiteer) out
of mash of papers brought back from U.S.
Yunnerstand I know nowt about teeYater. Hunks of Shxpr bore me; I
just can't read 'em. Despite me admiration fer other hunks.
I think you have made very considerable technical advance. See no
reason why Dukes shdn't do it. I know nowt about teeyater and dramedy.
For Dukes it might be called ' Our England.' I think you shd. go find out
what ole Fordie wuz drivin at; and eschew Mr. Eliot's affected and arty-
ficial language. I also think you might cut, but don't know where. Some of
the speeches may be too long. I, at any rate, tend to skip, as in 99% of the
419
Rapallo
crap offered by novelists who want to be licherchoor. I read the opening
half-line of a p. However yr. action does occur, in the harmony of the
three poops. The language intended to be their cliche is O.K. as that. Butt:
I can't hear the voices at other times. Ij 'you can cut all phrases that aren't
alive and all that don't carry on the action.
Waaal, waaal, it's easy saying that. And so forth. Mebbe it wd. be mostly
O.K. if spoke on the bleatink styge.
I enc. note for next issue, if you can stand that.
358: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo, 2 September
Dear Swabe: If for any reason postal communications are interrupted, will
you please correct the proofs of my Cantos, now in press at Fabers? Do
the best you can, a few misprints in a first edition won't matter, and better
to get the book through the press somehow than to have it hung up
indefinitely.
359: To Douglas McPherson
Rapallo, 2 September
Dear McPherson: There is plenty of room for a new mag. You can see
from my note in Townsman 'Statues of Gods' why I welcome parts of yr.
manifesto. I, also, hit that note in Front, a Dutch left paper, some years ago.
But you must realize first, that the actual output of good poetry is very
small. I shd. like to see a 16-page anthology (as review of past 7 years)
possibly as a start for Pan. Were I forced to make one I shd. have to go
into retrospect as far back as my own Active Anthology and take Bunting's
'Northern Farmer' and a few other pages of him, plus a couple of
Angold's satires, which you can find in New English Weekly.
Plus a few poems by Cummings and a token payment of ten lines quoted
from my new Cantos, just to show I exist. If you can find six pages outside
that lot, go to it.
Note that Ron Duncan has found no poetry; Laughlin has
found no poetry; Angleton has found one poem of Cummings' which I
have been able to quote in Meridiano di Roma. Note that people only have
to make large collections (N. Directions for ezampl) when there is lack of
420
1939 — aetat 53
live material* Vide my Catholic Anthology (same thing) back in 1916. Faut
de mieux.
But there is crying need for a small magazine 'like The Little Review of
1 917-19' that will fight and will include all the mental life of its time.
Furioso omits polemic so no use for this. Duncan is on this job for Eng-
land; there is a specific American fight that is not his job.
First: The only American book that needs reading is Overholser's
History of Money in the U.S. Were I editing a Little Review
or were I foreign editor of one on terms such as I had with The L.R. in
1 917-19, 1 shd. quote the whole 17 points of the Ikleheimer circular from
it. Ought to be on wall of every schoolroom.
2: There is the fight both against mercantilism (the syphilis of all
American univ. teaching, the official fed to all American stu-
dents) and against the bolshevik, as per Vanguard, Lenin, Marx, Trotsk,
etc., at 10 cents and 25 cents in edtns of 100,000. Can't efface it. All one can
do is to show that it is 'old stuff' because of omissions. What is needed is 60
or 80 pages of selections of gists of the writings of Adams, Jefferson, Van-
Buren, Jackson, Johnson. Plus such data as Overholser gives. You can't
run volumes of the founders' series in a small mag, but you can demand
'em, and damn the lights out of the sons of bitches who aren't getting 'em
into print, i.e., all these Hist, profs.
3: There is the specific fight against the dryrot and redflannel in Ameri-
can letters, all the snotted subsidies, all the official crap. Neither Laughlin
nor Furioso is doing the job. If the god damned big endowments had been
founded to impede arts and letters, they cdnt have been much more effi-
cient. They run to about 97% now.
If you care to use some of the things Poetry has suppressed in the past
decades??? etc. Might be of use.
There is a job to be done, things too small for me to show interest in,
which are yet a damnd nuisance and no encouragement or help to yr.
generation.
Compare the Phelps, Dillon, Hillyer, whoosis and whoosis, damn if I
can remember their names, with the men whose point of view is excluded
from the goddam colleges and subsidized reviews. . . .
America does not pay me 500 dollars a year and I imagine Williams and
Cummings get even less for their writings. Is that any use to you young??
Re yr. extension of contents: The real work of a time is never done by
more than four or five people with a fringe of occasional compositions. I
suspect inclusivity. I think a man can be more use by picking what he really
believes or wants and delousing his forebears.
At my age a man has too many olde lang synes. So difficult to kick old
421
Rapallo
friends in the fyce when they get sloppy. I have, but very few do. Any-
how, you are too young to be tolerant. Pick the best from us old buzzards;
don't load up with tepidities.
When I go onto a tennis court I don't want the young to send me a soft
service even if I am the oldest living purrformer except Gustav of Sweden.
Why shd ! a writer want it soft from young critics? Naturally, a hard ser-
vice gets a hard return. One wants a hard ball in the court; i.e., pertinent to
matter in hand.
360: To Tibor and Alice Serly
Rapallo y October
Dear Alice and Tib: Here at least is a 'Flea' that the audience can under-
stand when sung. 1
I take it 'hagy' is two syllables in the original, sung to one a. I have put
two syllables to a in 'god-it,' 'break- the.' For 'break the' you could have
' break almost all the ' and the ' the ' a mere ' grace note ' ; and to sing ' on the
in' as a triplet; especially as both 'thes' are on the same note (g). At any
rate, the thing can be heard, and the emphasis of the singer comes on words
that take an emphasis of meaning. Also certain almost rhymes in original
are akin to the English 'bit,' 'with'; 'light,' 'out'; 'floodlight' and 'head-
light.'
No, I had rather you didn't send the sonata to a publisher. I don't see a
market, I would rather begin with something I am more sure of, i.e.,
where I can defend the setting of words.
Waaal, thanks fer that nice licherary description of the pleasures of
travel in Frawnce. D. keeps sayin' 'If I had only known they were next
door on Lake Annecy. . . .'
Re Buck Flea: 'Buck' keeps the 'B* of 'bo' and the accent. 'Ram flea'
might be easier to sing, but not so good for the rise from a to in the first
1 By god-it was a / buck flea / An the damn thing j bit us
Dinner time / supper time, / he was always with us.
Had he eyes this / buck FLEA? / Had eyes like a / HEAD-light.
Did they GLARE? / Did they flare? / By god like a / FLOOD-light.
Had he claws that / BUCK flea? / When he came to j BITE us
He had CLAWS j to break-the walls / on-the inside and I omside.
Had he belly? / BY god / had he lights and I liver?
Had a GUT / that would HOLD / all the Danube RIVer.
422
1939 — aetat 54
' BOha' and the mouth closes on ' buCK.' At any rate this is as good as can
be done in the time.
The slight changes in duration value of words from one verse to an-
other are characteristic of folk song and keep it from being monotonous.
'Ram flea' might get slurred and the meaning lost. You don't say it was
4 he flea' till the 3rd strophe, but I reckon the male of the species is under-
stood and that a boha of this natr wuz a buck or, if you like, a iw//flea.
If you want to send me word for word translation of the original not
taking any count of the music, I'll see if I can make any improvements.
In the second and third stanzas 'buck* seems to me better than 'bull.'
'Buck' and 'bite,' 'light,' etc., make better syzogy than a soft sound like
//of 'bull.' And so forth.
I sent you the Siena program? Or did I forget to do so?
If I get to N. Y. in the spring, we might work up some of my Vivaldi
reductions. Better stuff for publisher, I think, than that sonata on my opera
basis.
361: To Henry Swabey
Rapallo, 31 October
Dear H.S.: — / — / Kung and Mencius do not satisfy all the real belief of
Europe. But all valid Christian ethics is in accord with them. In fact, only
Kung can guide a man, so far as I know, through the jungle of propaganda
and fads that has overgrown Xtn theology. The mysteries are not revealed,
and no guide book to them has been or will be written. — / — /
362: To Douglas McPherson
Rapallo, 3 November
Dear McPherson: I got up an hour ago with intention of writing to you
and to Eliot.
1st to suggest you apply quote from 'Last Oracle' (Swinburne):
'Not a cell is left to the god/
or the Gk.: 'lipate td basilei p£se daldalos 'euli 'euk£ti PHoibos 'eXt
kaltiban.
4*3
Rapallo
a. to Eliot re reprinting, etc., etc., which might do for Pan though I hadn't
thought of that till I got yr. letter.
If I am to be foreign edtr., I have got to know a lot more about the
practical running of the mag. I can't be any use unless we are sure of a
year's run. Printing bill assured. And the possibility of paying a small
sum for exceptional contributions.
In case of Little Review: The printing bill was supposed to be assured
and I had 750 dollars per year, for foreign editing and contributors. It
went $25 a month to me (i.e., $300 the year) for editing and 450 to contri-
butors. I was contributor to French issue and to H. James issue. I had the
choice of half the contents. That latter stipulation I don't now need or
want. I haven't time nor the conviction on points where I might disagree
with you. I.e., yr. interest in writers seems to extend further than mine and
I don't see you jibbing at anything from Cummings, Eliot or whomever
else I might suggest. It is now you who are seeing the volume of unprinted
stuff needing publication.
To be of use as advisor I shd. have to know how many pages per month
you can print. 32 seems a good number. I mean it is enough for my pur-
poses. I want for my personal use 2 to 4 pages. I mean I could do some-
thing with a regular monthly fire of 2 or 4 pages. All got to be calculated
beforehand.
I ought to be paid for Cantos and what wd. have been Criterion articles
were the Crit. still in existence.
Might calculate 2 Cantos and 2 essays a year?? Apart from monthly
notes or editorial?
I don't propose to deal with dead matter and negations. In fact, the
younger generation ought to do the killing and carrying away of corpses.
I've got my time cut out now for positive statements. My economic work
is done (in the main). I shall have to go on condensing and restating, but
am now definitely onto questions of belief. Re econ: I can depute the rest
to Overholser. Nobody knows what I have done: Brit. Union Quarterly,
Rassegna Monetaria, etc. It has still got to be diffused, distributed, put into
popular education, etc.
I don't think a mag can in 1940 be contemporary unless it faces the ques-
tion of race. Any mention of Chinamen being different from Sweedes or
Portuguese will lead to a charge of anti-Semitism. You haven't yet
answered me on that point. You've got to know where yr. money comes
from. I knew a McPhairson who marrit a chewish laty, etc. And the pro-
blem of short term credits keeps several offices mum. Different races
believe different formulations.
If I am to be part of the staff, either you've got to be really free, or you
424
1939 — aetat 54
have got to be based on some formula that I can accept. The more we get
clear before starting, the less time and ink will be wasted later. So far I can't
think of any disagreement by me to anything you have written. But you
probably don't realize how much you have left vague. In fact, only with
age does one realize the degree to which all human expression is poly-
biguous.
Yes, the Rev. Swabey is damn good man, one of the Few. But he is a
curate, and I think he wd. in Pan be better employed on economics than
on religion. He knows more about it; esp. some of the Church of Eng.,
etc., writings on usury, etc. He set out to teach father Eliot a few about
Lancelot Andrewes. After all, Pan isn't Xtian, and there are, my arse !,
enough Xtn publications. Let us have at least 'a page to the god.' How-
ever, O.K. to have him on Dante vs. Landor; he'd have got $50 from
Criterion for it.
The surviving members of the human race are so far as I know (omit-
ting several that wd. be useless or unavailable to Pan) Ron. Duncan,
Angold, now in the army, Swabey, Overholser, Cummings, Bunting
(probably unreachable), Wyndham Lewis (must be paid. Now in America.
Anything not Hellenic unless Hephaistos be come), T. S. Eliot, despite his
languors and cats (anglo and pseudo). — / — /
The minute you proclaim that the mysteries exist at all you've got to
recognize that 95 % of yr. contemporaries will not and can not understand
one word of what you are driving at. And you can not explain. The
secretum stays shut to the vulgo. And as H. Christian said years ago re
catholics: 'For god's sake leave 'em in there (i.e., church). If they weren't
in there doing that, they wd. be out here pour nous embeter.' — / — /
363: To A. B. Drew
Rapalbj 7 November
FABERS, Production Dept.: Re yours 1st inst., details of proofs.
Canto appears in heading where it is intended to be read aloud (if one is
reading aloud), so please retain it on page 88.
The one thing that is not wanted is uniformity in lots of places where a
variant is intended. This also goes for hyphens in Chinese words. No need
4*5
Rapallo
to go into all Lin Yutang has been writing on how to help Europeans
remember Chinese names.
Your letter evidently posted before you had got my page proofs.
I put in the page numbers for the Cantos. The contents is grouped
under the cantos. Can't very well be sorted out as to pages as the topics are
frequently spread or used on various pages.
Page 30: variations of 'can not' are O.K.
' Ouan soui' O.K., with or without hyphen. Spell it 'banzai* if you pre-
fer. Sound changes from one dynasty to another. Etc.
The T5IN can stay as is.
Likewise ' TAOzers.' I want in every way to get into reader's head I am
speaking disrespectfully of Taoist.
French accents: Do please correct them.
At what degenerate period did an 'E' get into 'aquaduct'? I don't care
how you spell it.
' Nutche ' can stay either way.
On 97: The hyphen certainly stays after 'up-'. That is essential to the
meaning, though you might add another hyphen after the ) and before
'held'; sic: *)-held', if you think that is clearer. I dare say the second
hyphen would be more amusing and clearer: *up-(as they say)-held\
109: ' Quarrell \ O hell, put in as many hells as you like.
Page 125: The Moses Gill referred to, as an individual capable of suing
for libel, is dead. Of course the race of him exists, but he is both Aryan
and Sumarian and Palestinian; nevertheless, the race, including its
Aryan members, is not a person-at-law. If you mean you wish all of him
were dead, that is up to you.
134-5: You can use accents as in yr. Frog dictionary and spell him
Richelieu. Same goes for Seville and £tat.
P. 1 5 5 : lines 2-3, yes, the repetition is intended.
157:' erected ' is correct.
158: you can lard in some lines of three or four dots in the Latin if
you like. I can't put in a whole page of Cicero's prose at that point. Got to
abbreviate.
172: yes, do as you like; accent and cap.
Schuyler is dead. Hamilton's god damn father-in-law. Dead for a hun-
dred years; and if you believe in hell, you are ad lib. to think he rots.
182: spell 'em as you like.
Idem 184.
Don't be 'sorry.' I am truly grateful for the care spent on these details.
Will get back the remaining page proofs as soon as possible, i.e., as soon
as I can give 'em due care. They came this A.M. along with yr. letter.
426
1939— aetat 54
364: To Ronald Duncan
Rapalfay 7 November
Dear Ron: You complain for specific and general ignorance of India. For
two dozen reasons I strongly suggest you offer yr. services to the Ministry
of Information on just that topic. Whether they accept the offer, is their
lookout. But I hope you will make it. Very few people have any idea of
both sides. A little clarity could be very useful and yr. having been useful
cd. be useful later to you. Take my own case. I loathe and always have
loathed Indian art. Loathed it long before I got my usury axis. Obnubi-
lated, short curves, muddle, jungle, etc. Waaal, we find the hin-goddam-
doo is a bloody and voracious usurer. Maybe Ghandi isn't, but nobody
else has been to see him. From what you told me, I can see separate villages,
life as of herd of wild animals in Africa: no main structure to the country,
nothing to satisfy European, Roman, J. Adams sense of the state. You
might cast some light on that. Mebbe it is agin their natr.
At any rate, the Rhoosian immolation on machine would seem further
from their disposition than even red-coated England. And the Bolshie pro-
fanation of sacred, etc., etc.
Then for Mohammeds: they are O.K. on usury, but damn'd useless
again for European man. They had a few centuries, Avicenna, etc. I am
told: 'Oh yes; that was all non-Mohammedan root, Persia, etc., squsched
out by their stinking near eastern fanaticism. Sperit that built the Pyramids
without the constructive sense to build anything. Abstract art.' Vs. which:
the Alhambra, Taj (by Italian workmen), etc. ? ? ?
Anyhow, I can see a lot of useful work that you cd. do somewhere
along that line. You can start as if telling me. I probably can see as much
as the general pubk. My objection to English Raj? has been that they
have preserved a lot of the unfit. Bad as eugenics. All of which is prob.
iggurunce.
I knew some nice chaps came with Tagore in 191 1-12, but haven't done
anything, and Rabi himself poifikly hopeless re statal sense, etc.
Rushing to post.
P.S. Abstract better than distortion.
4*7
Rapallo
365: To George Santayana
Rapallo , 8 December
Dear G.S.: I, on the other hand, am convinced that Venice is a perfect
place to pass the winter, but I don't suppose you will have the compla-
cency or even the inertia to stay there till the 26th inst. or practically
speaking the 27th.
You have obligingly finished the opus at the earliest date I cd. read it. I
have also got to the end of a job or part of a job (money in history) and for
personal ends have got to tackle philosophy or my 'paradise,' and do
badly want to talk with some one who has thought a little about it. There
is one bloke in England, whose name escapes me, who has dropped an
intelligent aside in a small book on Manes. Otherwise you are the only
perceivable victim.
Apart 9a, did I quote T. S. Eliot to ' Old Krore' who was 'surprised to
see' me at a meeting of the Aristotelian Soc. in, I suppose, 19 16. ' Oh, he's
not here as a philosopher. He is here as an an thro pologist.'
The venbl Corey so put the fear of gawd into me re yr. wanting to be
left in peace to finish the Opus that I had the decency not to introduce
serious subjects into our first conversation.
Do give notice if same is likely to be henceforth permissible. There are
one or two gropings in my notes to Cavalcanti and one or two Chinese
texts whereupon sidelight wd. be welcome.
Might tear up the carpet, perhaps along the line: We believe nothing
that is not European.
Xtianity is quite lousy with non-European influences but all of it that is
respectable is either indigenous or put there by hard work from the time
of St. Ambrose down to the sell-out, when the usurers got hold of the
papacy and the conclaves no longer believed or even had clear idea of
their own dogmas.
I am not insisting. I am wondering how far this is correct. Nuisance not
to have Migne on the premises as mere reports of Erigena look as if the
interest may have been painted on by the writers of the reports. Gemisthus
Plethon's polytheism evaporated when one got near it.
If I don't get to Venice in time to see you, I hope you (and the volatile
acolyte?) will get to Rapallo.
428
1940
366: To Otto Bird
Rapallo y 12 January
Dear Bird: If you are still plugging at that thesis, I think you will find a
good deal of interest in J. Scotus Erigena, vol. 122 of Migne.
No use my bothering you with partic. refs. until I know what you are
doing. Also one ought to read the whole thing esp. the commentary of the
pseudo-Dionysus. So far I don't find the text backs up various statements
I have read about Erigena. I want corroborations on various points. Often
a hurried reading fails to find a 'denegat' at the end of passage. A lot of
nice ideas start in one's own head that can't be attributed to J.S.E.
Another point in all study of Patrologia and mediaeval philos or rather
a whole system of examination is wanted. I suggest you will write interest-
ingly if you start sorting out the elements as to source or probable source;
and suggest four categories:
European (say Greek)
Roman
Jewish
and North European, Scotus, Grosseteste, Albertus de la Magna, etc.
My present feeling is that all Biblical influence is merely rotten so far as
the thought is concerned. Very probably I exaggerate. But justice and
measure are Roman. The admirable tradition may start with Ambrose and
last to Antonino. The Greek is fine. The European good.
Met a bloke who had been in East studying Mohammeds. He said they
invented nowt. Anything good in 'em derived from Greece or Persia or
somewhere. This to be taken cum grano and then some. Anyhow, I shd.
like a sort out of at least two lots of concepts: The European and the non-
European.
Re Cavalcanti: Erigena certainly throws doubt on various readings:
./ormato and informzto, etc. I wonder whether lots of copyists didn't each
emend the text to suit their own views.
I at any rate have got to digest Erigena and then review the whole
' Donna mi Prega.' And I shd. like a fellow-traveler.
429
Rapallo
Did I send you a few questions re need of a monthly magazine and
what you cd. do for or about one?
Is Gilson on the premises? Has he got any hunches re European and
non-European categories?
367: To George Santayana
Rapallo, 16 January
Dear G.S.: It is good of you to write at such length. Responsus est:
1. Premature to mention my 'philosophy,' call it a disposition. In an-
other 30 years I may put the bits together, but probably won't.
2. Chinese saying 'a man's character apparent in every one of his brush
strokes.' Early characters were pictures, squared for aesthetic reasons. But
I think in a well-brushed ideogram the sun is seen to be rising. The east is
a convention; the west ideogram hasn't the sun in it. Not sure whether it
may be sheepfold (this guess).
One ideogramic current is from picture often of process, then it is tied
to, associated with one of a dozen meanings by convention. Whole pro-
cess of primitive association, but quite arbitrary, as: two men, city,
night = theft.
Not the picturesque element I was trying to emphasize so much as the
pt. re western man 'defining' by receding: red, color, vibration, mode of
being, etc.; Chinese by putting together concrete objects as in F's example:
red cherry
iron rust flamingo
Am not sure the lexicographers back him up.
Sorry you had those grubby pages. A few nice ideograms would have
reconciled your aesthetic perceptions.
Have I indicated my letch toward teXne, and do I manage to indicate
what I conceive as kindred tendency? From the thing to the grouped
things, thence to a more real knowledge than in our friend Erigena (whose
text I have wheedled out of Genova) — nice mind but mucking about in
the unknown. Damn all these citations of Hebrew impertinence or what-
ever. Erig. had* nice mind, full of light and had perceived quite a lot. It's
the fussing with nomenclature by absolutely ignorant arguers that gets my
goat.
The decline of the West occurred between the Nicomachean Ethics and
the Magna (or fat) Moralia.
430
I94°~ aetat 54
I believe the venerable Dan C. was annoyed by the frivolities of my
Kulch. I don't know whether it wd. serve as better answer to part of yf.
question than what I can knock out in ten minutes. Not sure the book is
still in print. Danl might think ill of you if you descended to borrow his
copy.
I am trying to get my American publisher to reprint the 'Mencius.' But
don't think it contains much more on the present point (or diafana).
At any rate, Fenollosa has delivered us from the godawful translations
of Chinese poetry that preceded him. And there is a place where that rising
sun ideogram in one of the poems in his anthology once and forever is a
sort of l'alba tan tost ve.' However, this is getting too complicated.
Next A.M.: Your remark about my remark on 'values remain* being
dogmatic. Liddell gives 'dogma, what seems true to one, an opinion.' But
'dogmatikes, belonging to opinions or maxims; maintaining them.' I have
always had an impression of an 'ought* hanging about the word. I could
say 'values recur' (or I don't mind 'remain'), but let it stand as an obser-
vation gathered from particular cases.
The ole W. of Bab. certainly and for long time has used her dogmas in
the sense of something the sheep had to accept. Not as any ' seems ' but cer-
tainly as ' maxim ex cat.', etc.
368: To T. S. Eliot
Rapalhy 18 January
Waaal, naow, me deer protopheriius: — / — / 1 am sorry yew missed the
outlook from the Palazzo, but it got so goddam cold we emigrated to a
steam-hot and damn good eatin pension. And don't worrit about more
money. I kin feed yew for a couple of weeks. And over a decent amount
you cd. pay up after the war if any. Anyhow, don't stop for a mere matter
of money. Come erlong fer St. Valentine's day or any other respectable
Pagan feast.
I may go to Rome the fust pt. of Feb. I cd. lend you Italian money for
about a week in Rome. Can't offer that luxury as a invite wiffout fewcher
recompense, — / — /
And Spencer has the laffon Bastun; as they fired him, but Cambridge,
England, wanted him. To which place he couldn't get. Jas sez it is first
time Cam. Eng. has tooken a prof, from Cam. Mass. So haw, bloody
hawhaw. Minnethelaughing waters ! !
Rapallo
I want a reprint of 'Mencius' as soon as possible. Had a lot of jaw with
Geo. Santayana in Venice, and like him. Never met anyone who seems to
me to fake less. In fact, I give him a clean bill. He has a low opnyn of yr.
ole pal Irvink Babbitt, in which I suspect he is right.
I have now the text of Erigena, and if I could get hold of the recent pub-
lications about him, I could write quite a chunk. Not that I am letching to.
Lot to connect wiff Cavalcanti's poem, if any more is wanted on them
lines. Or allusions to Dant.
I shd. start rev. of mod. esp. of Erig. with Schleuter's Latin comment,
dated Westphalia 1838. A bit special but no/i-political. Johnny Scot.
'Pietate insignia atque hilaritate.' Johnny had a nice mind. Omnia quae
sunt lumina sunt. I haven't yet found anything that fits what I had read
about what he thought, but it may be in the 600 pages double col. Migne,
vol. 122.
You ought to be able to get tourist lire if you can come. Have you
asked about that at the Italian tourist agency in Regent St. ? ? I shd. like to
know, cause I cd. mention it if I am druv to invite anyone else in yr. dis-
tinguished place.
The Yanks are publishing a goddam series on Philosophers, beginning.
i.e., begun, with Dewey. Santayana second. I could probably chew the ear
off some of the fatheads.
Have you got Wyndham's Buffalo address? Why the hell don't the
blighter write?
St. Ambrose is one of the blokes I keep on quotin'. However, if his birf-
day is past, I will have to await wiff anticipation. It is marked S. Vitaliano
(which looks like a misspelling for 'veal'; let's hope it is a fat calf). I never
heard of the bloke, but he is on the orphans' calendar. And the 26th Saint
PaulA (a lady martyr). How confusing your religion is anyhow.
What is the earliest date you cd. print a prose book? I want the
'Mencius,' and as Jas keeps selling the Ta Hio regular. ... It would be
about the same size. Or a trilogy: Ta Hio 9 'Mencius' and a note on Eri-
gena. Probably about twice the size, depends on date. There is in the
Zukofsky reprint of the first half of Spirit of Romance a 191 2 note on
sequaire of Goddeschalk, etc. The soft sort of stuff I then did. Pubd. in ole
Mead's Quest. Seems such a waste to grind out new prose when there is
such a lot of my stuff out of print. However, the mature emissions of a
superior mind, die riper, the juicier, etc. — I get that angle also. I don't feel
ready to knock off 'The whole of Philosophy' in six months.
There is alius Claudius Salmasius' De Modo Usurarum. A serious
author. And I have a Sextus Empiricus on fhe lot. Nice style. Voltairian
finish. George nigh bust when I said I cdn't get a copy of Scot. Erig. but
4»a
1940— aetat 54
, -4A managed to get a Sextus. Wot wiff ideograms and all, George is trying
t ( see the connection. I have fed him the Cavalcanti and all is nice
;, :d cordial at the Hotel Daniele. In fact, if you were still an American I
night propose a triumvirate. As copain I prefer him to some of yr.
Dlerated. — / — /
369: To Katue Kitasono
Rapallo, 22 January
Dear K.K.: I have you to thank for a very elegant volume. The drawings
100k as if an occidental influence had entered your life. 'Decadence of the
Empire.' All I now need is a translation. As the poems are very short, don't
bother to make it literary. If I had a literal version I might possibly put it
in shape. Can't tell. Only a fraction of poetry will translate.
Did you use that bit of Jap. Times as wrapping on purpose? Or is it
coincidence? First thing I see is 'leg conscious Japan' which reminded me
s/f Ito's first remark to me in 19 14 or '15: 'Jap'nese dance all time over-
oat.' Then I notice the ineffable Miscio in person, but not in voice, save in
iie remark on the fan dance and Sally.
I believe I could have done a better article on Ito than the J.T. inter-
viewer. Did you meet him? The paper is dated October and says he was to
return to America in Jan., so this is too late to serve as introduction, but if
he is still in Tokio, give him my remembrances. I looked for him in N.
York, but he was then in S. Francisco.
Mr. Masaichi Tani writes very good English, but he has missed a chance.
His girls will have to be patriotic and ' use Japan Knees ' — whatever foreign
clothes they obtain.
If you do meet Miscio ask him about ' Ainley's face behind that mask,'
or his borrowing the old lady's cat. As to the photo in the J. 71, 1 can't
believe even Hollywood and facial massage has kept him 18. Not 25 years
later.
Do you know whether the/. T. is being sent me? It doesn't get here.
P.S. Did you see the Hawk's Well — is it any use in Japanese?
370: To T. S. Eliot
Rapalhy 1 February
To the aff bl Protopgerius Wunkus: Gittin down to thet book. There is, so
far as I know, no English work on Kulturmorphologie, transformation of
21 433
Rapallo
cultures. Can't use a German term at this moment. Morphology of cul-
tures. Historic process taken in the larger.
I know you jib at China and Frobenius cause they ain't pie church; and
neither of us likes savages, black habits, etc. However, for yr. enlighten-
ment, Frazer worked largely from documents. Frob. went to things,
memories still in the spoken tradition, etc. His students had to see and be
able to draw objects. All of which follows up Fabre and the Fenollosa
'Essay on Written Character.'
There is a book of patient, and How, explanation to be done on this to
get (in 80 years) it into the universitai head that history did not stop,
better say historiography did not cease developing methods of Gibbon or
ape or whomever.
Naturally history without monetary intelligence is mere twaddle. That
I think I have conveyed to you by now? ? But I bayn't sure you have grosp
the other element in the growth of historiographic teXne. I should use both
that distance from Nichomachean notes to Magna Moralia, along with
various categories of Frobenius.
That I cd. start on now. I don't think I am ready for an analysis of
Christianity into its various racial components, European and non-
European. Think I should approach it in such a book — natr of belief, etc.
Note that I shd. claim to get on from where Frobenius left off, in that
his Morphology was applied to savages and my interest is in civilizations
at their most .
By way, ole pot-belly Wells writes me there is something in a book (on
second reading evidently it is his book) (or Work) Wealth and Happiness
of Mankind. Seems incredible? Unlikely I can get a copy here or that it is
sold at reasonable price or that he would ever get down to the brassier
variety of tacks on any subject. Have you or Swabey or anyone ever seen
or heard of the volume ?
371: To H. G.Wells
Rapallo, 3 February
Dear H.G.: By a miracle I have got hold of yr. Hay Stack or serial review
of the Encyclopedia Britannica (an uncertain work).
Waaal, you are pretty messy. Tho' you have some points in your sum-
mary of some one's book on P. Morgan. And one clause re money detach-
ing people from soil and responsibility to same.
434
1940 — aetat 54
And as luck wd., I find you being merely the conceited half-baked J.
Bull on p. 337. You may, if drunk, have chanced on a hysterical female; I
have spent a deal of time in Italy and never seen a servant struck, tho' the
barboy aged 16 did knock down the head waiter for a fancied impoliteness
on the part of the latter. Backward countries me arse ! !
I have also seen two females in combat in Kensington back street with
admiring throng of refeen'd lower clawrs henglish and a comic male
(about yr. build) telling one of 'em, the winner, 'You 'adn't orter strike a
wumman.'
First observations in re way you avoid 'all the real authors, or at any rate
so many of 'em. No sign of Chas. Beard, for example. Naturally you are
weak on Doug and Gesell because English do not read books by men
younger than themselves or published after their own debuts. Butchart's
Money would do you a world of good. But you cdn't have had that in '32.
Nevertheless if you are ass enough to consider Keynes a reliable writer,
Khrrist and all help you. I think what it comes to is that you
'established' guys never crab or mistrust any other Britisher who is in the
gang. Krhhist, do you have yr. reading picked for you by the Times Lit.
Sup.?? Keynes on H.C.L.: ' caused by lack 0/labour.' In my hearing. . . .
An orthodox economist.
Of course, it ain't all yr. fault. Criticism is hard to get. I have had jive
real criticisms. I doubt if you have fever sought any.
If you wd. start any chapter with a definition (or the book) — with the
definitions of the terms you mean to use No. Damn it, you use a good
phrase and then you flop; you muff.
I don't at p. 348 see you facing the price gap. And Keynes is a louse, he
is the kahal incarnate. And phrases such as 'no other way' show incom-
plete knowledge. — / — /
Oh, hell, I've a vol. of Beard and another by Corey (with some facts in
it). Is there any use my reading yours? I am not being paid to review it
eight years late. I have no indication that anyone ever has criticized it
seriously to you or that your idea of criticism is other than the English
current idea, i.e., part of publishers' advertising, a 'review* by some
Jackie S. who is paid to review it, because the publisher takes so much
space (adv.).
But for affection's sake, I will read the damn thing carefully if you wd.
like a careful criticism of some of the sloppy paragraphs.
435
Rapallo
372: To George Santayana
Rapalby 6 February
Dear G.S.: Faber (the publisher) wants to know whether you would con-
sider and on what terms you would consider, etc., a desperate attempt to
save further generations from the horrors of past education.
All of which arises from my transmission to Eliot of your little story of
Henry Adams 'It can not be done.' 1 Plus your further remark, 'It doesn't
matter what so long as they all read the same things.'
The proposal is, if not beneath your dignity, and with the aim of getting
out of our usuals, that you, Eliot (T.S., not his late cousin) and the under-
signed should each, with malice or without, enjoy ourselves setting down
either a method or a curriculum or both.
I don't imagine that we have any readers in common. We are regarded
as the three Europeans of American origins or what not, or at any rate
those who got out alive.
I had no such designs on your quiet when I entered the Daniele. I know
that it savours of revivalism, etc.
On the other hand the shock of such a symposium.
Or as Eliot writes, 'It is he (namely G.S.) who adds just the spot of
respectability that makes (his phrase; I shd. say 'would make if,' etc.) the
book queer whereas if you (E.P.) and me (T.S.E.) didn't have him I don't
say we couldn't make the book just as queer, but the public wouldn't be
so surprised.'
I plead the missionary sperrit: guilty ! !
I don't see why it shouldn't be as good or better a place to answer your
critics (in that philosophical symposium) as any magazine, etc. could or
would offer. I do think it is an implement to carry your philosophy to
readers who wouldn't normally read a volume labeled philosophy.
Faber is rushing ahead with 'Has he an agent here (London)? We
would want to handle American rights.' All of which seems to me pre-
mature.
It is, hang it all, a chance to blast off some of the fog and fugg. I can see
Eliot's reason and my reasons for welcoming the chance much more clearly
than I can see why you should be bothered, but then on the other foot I
don't see why you need be very greatly bothered.
Conjecturally you would regard curriculum or method as arising from a
philosophic root, a scheme of values, and all you need do is attach a para-
1 Le., teach at Harvard University.
436
I94°~ aetat 54
graph to that effect to whatever you happen to be writing. With as much
or as little pugnacity, etc, venom or benevolence as the mood of the day
dictates. Hell. Possum and I can't be as stuffy as some of the blokes now
engaged in symposing on your beliefs. And the company would either
excuse a lighter tone or give salience to a greater gravity and suavity of (?)
attack.
'What the exceptional y.m. ought to have the bare chance of learning in
a university che si rispetta.'
Length, amount, etc., would, I take it, be for you to dictate. Eliot and I
to fill in whatever you chose to omit. My emphasis would be on econo-
mics, history, letters and possibly music. With my 'Mencius' essay either
in the vol. or implied.
I have no idea what Eliot would do, except that he agrees that the
blighters should define their terms before spouting about this and the
other.
Have I been clear? Faber invites a volume or triptych or however you
spell it: G.S., T.S.E. and myself on the Ideal University, or The Proper
Curriculum, or how it would be possible to educate and/or (mostly or) '
civilize the university stewd-dent (and, inter lineas, how to kill off bureau-
cratism and professoriality).
The Henry Adams anecdote is above price: it is your story and ought to
be in the opening pages if not the opening paragraph. Anyhow, the idea
arose from it.
I don't know what more I can say other than one more citation of
Eliot's letter re the Faber committee: 'They say that it ought to be a very
queer book and it appeals to them.'
373: To Henry Swabey
Rapalloj 7 March
Dear Swabe: You better twig the manifesto of the American Catholic
Bishops and step on the gas. It covers a good deal, and yr. own pot-
bellied bastid piscops are left at the post.
Don't bother re Wells. Have seen the book and had several notes from
H.G., adorned with portraits. Reckon he never has and never will define
anything. All his words indefinite middles.
Know nowt about Java or sadica marriage. What is?
Re European belief: Neither mass nor communion are of Jew origin.
437
Rapallo
Nowt to do with that narsty old maniac JHV and are basis of Xtn relig.
Mass ought to be in Latin, unless you cd. do it in Greek or Chinese. In
fact, any abracadabra that no bloody member of the public or half-educated
ape of a clargimint cd. think he understood.
The Cat. Bishops' manifest vurry long-winded.
What I meant re Doug was that there has been an absence of practi-
cality, absence of consideration of means whereby state wd. arrange to
compensate, etc. All par with the bloke who wd. just neglect to get logs
for the raft. Everybody (especially the derating) dodging the job of doing
it on the spot; in the place where they are. Hence, I spose, 151 votes vs. 1 5
thousand or whatever for some labour faker.
Glad of any good dirt on Tom Aquinas. A bad influence. Wrong type
of mind.
374: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, 14 March
Dear Ron: On receipt of yrs. I promptly sat down and wrote you an
article, but this A.M. it seemed too dull to be worth the postage.
I cd. pretty well swap my motto (see above) 1 for your 'No taxes before
the harvest.' That is yr. best line out of four. I approve the aim of the
others, but in practice some provision had to be made of the centre. Nine
fields system is O.K.
If you review Cantos and if Swabe does a comparison of the manifesto
of the American Catholic Bishops' 68 points with the Papal Encyclical and
with my What is Money For? that wd. prob. be better than any more of
me. In other words, I am getting to age where at bloody last I occasionally
wonder whether I don't talk too much ... or at any rate to stop and ask
meself : is it useful to say this or that ... at a particular time.
I started yesterday's note with a line I had cancelled in ms. sent Swabe
. . . but!!! reaction to remarks by other contributors, etc., etc., isn't
printing matter.
Mass and communion not Jewish in origin. . . . What's use my saying
that especially as I have not studied the Mass and am not absolutely sure
what mightn't be tucked into it. Anything I said to Swabe can stand.
I suppose Austin is a pussydonym. Good poem.
1 Pound's stationery bore the following sentence from Mussolini: 'Liberty is
not a right but a duty.'
438
1940 — aetat 54
Christianity is (or was when real) anti-Semitism, etc. What is the use of
arguing (my arguing) with undefined terms. At any rate, I am off impro-
visations; at least for, I hope, a week or two.
Looks to me as if you had jazzed up Mr. Eliot's drumatik technique by
having more to say. Rien ne pousse a la concision comme l'abondance
d'idees.
Less the Bible is used for reading matter, better for Europe. If a race
neglects to create its own gods, it gets the bump. Borrow yr. gods from a
central bank and naturally you end in slavery and in moral
and degradation. Would be mere waste of print to yatter about this.
The Cat. Bishops have assumed responsibility. Don't leave
room in a urinal for the Anglicans or Arch-bs.
Protestantism is a usury politic. Well, not wholly. Believe Luther was
against usury, and was anti-tax, at least agin sending tax money out of the
country. What the hell is the use writing a dull article. No use my going
off half-cocked on large subjects whereon I have not yet arrived at con-
clusion. Nothing in this note is ready for press. And to rewrite old articles
makes boring copy.
The place to defend England is on the land. I am with you there.
Haven't you left a flat out of the miserere stave?
Don't worry about the mysterium. There is plenty left. But not a sub-
ject for polite essays. To hell wiff Abraham. Most of the constructive so-
called Xtn ideas are out of the Stoics. In fact, I should suggest that all
'Christian decency' is sheer stoic. I doubt if any single ethical idea now
honoured comes from Jewry. But either one has got to do a Quarterly old
style 20 page, down to the bottom based on 40 years continuous study, or
let such a subject alone. At any rate, I have only finished my historic econ.
section a year ago, and don't want to make wild statements. Questions no
good at this time. Need all the circumjacent intelligence for immediate
things.
Damn it all, I am a poek, partly a musician, i.e., in one corner up to a
point, and a economist. I can't become an authority on another dept. in six
weeks or even six months. Time is past for me to do interim stuff, and ex
cathedra? NO.
Speculation is one thing; dogma another. And I don't think it oppor-
tune to print speculation at the moment. May change my mind next week.
I mean for me to print it, or write it for print. O.K. for you to dramatize.
Tempus tacendi. I don't know how long it will last. Might be a beautiful
object lesson to Porterhouse (H. G. Porteus).
439
Rapallo
375: To Sadakichi Hartmann
Rapallo, 20 March
Dear Sadakichi: Two years ago I was elected to what I first heard H. James
describe funereally as * a body. 9
Naturally, they don't like it, but by dint of abuse the treasurer has
printed a report reed, here this A.M. They are pouilleux with money. I
mean from our sized view, not from the N. Y. view. Anyhow, they have a
relief fund, not more than 500 a year to any one person.
Some of the painters may not be as lousy as most of the writers — never
heard tell of most of either — but if you know some nice influential mem-
bers, I see no reason why they shouldn't give milk. I can only think of two
other qualified recipients; one may be dead and the other proud.
The sekkertary, oh Joy, is old Canby. But they say he ain't gotta bad
heart; Seidel is at least a convivial sound. On the strength of the oysters to
Walt (who died before the body emerged from the of time)
you might git a sandwich. At any rate, this action is prompt.
376: To Ronald Duncan
Rapallo, 30 March
No, Ron: Chinaman not so simple as all that. Central field had to be
ploughed, etc., and cultivated first. That job done, each of the eight
families cd. attend to its own. Naturally any five or seven of them famblies
wd. keep an eye on the one or three that did not do its stunt or stint of work
in the ducal or state field. In fact, the mechanism for law enforcement right
thaaar on the spot.
There was commutation to a tenth, for urban or at least for court, i.e.,
metropolis-capital city area.
Mencius remarks that reduction to 1/20 means return to 'dog and camp
fire' state of society whereas above i/ioth or 1/9 is oppression. Bureau-
cracy, etc. — / — /
As to tax on non-cultivated land: why not go fascist'and merely cul-ti-
vate the damn land when the owners of latifundia fail to do so?
All taxes or fixed charges are from hell. A division of fruits is the proper
440
194 — aetat 54
mode. Tax on non-fruitful houses, libraries! pictures no use. It ends with
everything in Lazard's cellar.
Tax? In money? Who issues the money?? The answer is cultivate the
land; right of ownership shd. imply obligation to use. Ownership is a legal
construction made by law and custom, not by geology. If you tax the
Marquis, he merely borrows money; been goin on since days of Eliz.
Farming out estates, etc. Invite the buggah to cultivate. If he don't, the
county, township or whatever executive division, goes in and cultivates.
Tax is merely a shifting of money, usually for sake of paying bugrocrats'
salaries. It creates nothing.
A tithe; meaning share of the FRUITS, not fixed charge, a percentage.
An assurance to worker that if he produces he won't starve. Ammassi. If
necessary. Have you got the Am. Cat. Bishops' manifesto?
As to teeyater: I dunno nowt abaht teeyater. Seems to me one needs a
total social revolution before one can set up real festivals of any kind.
Drama religious, but not costume historique. Essence of religion is the
present tense.
Something might be done with fact (I mean seems to me fact) that
Catholic church is not a stasis. I doubt if any modern Cat., stupidest priest
in swamp village, believes the god damned muck that St. Cyril believed.
All this damn near eastern squish is dead mutton, forgotten. Ordinary
Cats, have no idea what Church once meant. Whether Roman Church can
adjust yet again to what anyone really believes is another question. Angli-
cans don't believe. 'Interferes neither with man's politics nor his religion.'
Etc.
377: To Ronald Duncan
Rapalby 31 March
Dear Ron: — / — / Blasted friends left a goddam radio here yester. Gift.
God damn destructive and dispersive devil of an invention. But got to be
faced. Drammer has got to face it, not only face cinema. Anybody who
can survive may strengthen inner life, but mass of apes and worms will be
still further rejuiced to passivity. Hell a state of passivity ? Or limbo??
Anyhow what drammer or teeyater wui, radio is. Possibly the loathing
of it may stop diffuse writing. No sense in print until it gets to finality?
Also the histrionic developments in announcing. And the million to one
chance that audition will develop: at least to a faculty for picking the fake
441
Rapallo
in the voices. Only stuff fit to hear was Tripoli, Sofia and Tunis. Howling
music in two of 'em and a cembalo in Bugarea.
And a double sense of the blessedness of silence when the damn thing is
turned off.
Anyhow, if you're writin for styge or teeyater up to date, you gotter
measure it all, not merely against cinema, but much more against the per-
sonae now poked into every bleedin' 'ome and smearing the mind of the
peapull. If anyone is a purrfekk HERRRRkules, he may survive, and may
clarify his style in resistence to the devil box. I mean if he ain't druv to
melancolia crepitans before he recovers.
I anticipated the damn thing in first third of Cantos and was able to do
52/71 because I was the last survivin' monolith who did not have a bloody
radio in the 'ome. However, like the subjects of sacred painting as Mr.
Cohen said: 'Vot I say iss, we got to svallow 'em, vot I say iss, ve got to
svallow 'em.' Or be boa-constricted. W
Who publishes the Chinese farming book? Any use to me? I am too old
to git out and plow, and besides all the fields here are terraced and worked
by spade. However, I shd. purrfurr it to fishing; I ain't no piscator, not Ez.
I thoroughly believe in plowin'. I have heard that to sail coastally or plow
you fix yr. eye on a distant point or two points in a line. Anyhow, I can't
plow till they make me a emperor, and no continent's yett bidding fer me
soivices in thet line.
Of course Sweeney would be O.K. on stage. I think probably all
dramatic writing makes a theatre; sets the scene, etc. That may be test of
its being dramatic. Whereas undramatic writing needs a stage.
P.S. Bottrall'll do as good a review as anyone except possibly Possum.
378: To Tibor Serly
Rapallo, April
Dear Tib: Helluva job to get a complete set of programs. Only people who
I care about having advertised are O.R., Munch (who has just hit die high
in Germany: 'one of the best if not the best pianist'), you, and the
Hungarians.
In main outline:
1 June 1933: Mozart sonatas as per program sent sep. cov. 12 sonatas
for violin and piano. The rest done privately so that a 
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